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2S\50S 

Cofy  I 


THE    PEOPHETS    OF    ISEAEL 


AND 


THEIE  PLACE  IN  HISTORY 


By  the  same  author. 

THE 

OLD  TESTAMENT  IN 

THE 

JEWISH  CHURCH. 

TWELVE  LECTURES   ON  BIBLICAL 

CRITICISM,   WITH  NOTES. 

lamo,  cloth,  $1.75. 

New  York :  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  i,  3.  &  5 

Bond  St. 

THE 


PROPHETS   OF  ISRAEL 


THEIR  PLACE  IN  HISTOEY 


TO  THE  CLOSE  OF  THE  EIGHTH  CENTURY  B.  C. 


&i%\i  %td)xxt% 


BY 

W.  ROBERTSON  SMITH,  LL.  D. 


KEW  YORK 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 

1,  3,  AXD  5  BOND  STREET 

1882 


PEIHGETOIT 
I'HaOLGGIGiiL 

PEEFACE, 

The  Lectures  contained  in  this  volume  were  delivered 
last  winter  to  large  popular  audiences  in  Edinburgh 
and  Glasgow,  at  the  invitation  of  an  influential  com- 
mittee of  gentlemen  interested  in  the  progress  of  Biblical 
study.  The  Lectures  were  to  some  extent  planned  as  a 
sequel  to  a  course  delivered  in  the  same  cities  in  the 
previous  winter,  and  published  last  year  under  the  title 
of  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church.  The  primary 
design  of  that  course  was  to  expound,  in  a  manner 
intelligible  to  persons  unacquainted  with  Hebrew,  the 
problems  and  methods  of  modern  criticism  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  so  to  enable  the  laymen  of  Scotland  to 
follow  with  intelligence  the  controversy  then  occupying 
the  Courts  of  the  Free  Church  as  to  the  right  of  criticism 
to  assert  itself  within  the  Churches  of  the  Westminster 
Confession.  So  far  as  the  Church  Courts  are  concerned, 
that  controversy  has  for  the  present  been  abruptly 
terminated,  by  what  may  fairly  be  called  an  act  of 
violence,  and  without  a  legal  decision  being  obtained 


PREFACE. 


from  the  General  Assembly  of  tlie  Cliurcli  on  questions 
which  certainly  cannot  be  permanently  disposed  of  until 
they  have  been  exhaustively  considered  in  their  relation 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  Protestant  Churches  on  the  one 
hand,  and  to  the  laws  of  scientific  inquiry  and  the  evi- 
dence of  historical  fact  upon  the  other.  Ecclesiastical 
leaders  have  always  been  prone  to  flatter  themselves 
that  questions  of  truth  and  Christian  liberty  can  be  set 
at  rest  by  an  exertion  of  authority  ;  but  those  who  love 
truth  for  its  own  sake  cannot  acquiesce  in  this  easy 
method ;  and  not  in  Scotland  alone,  but  in  all  Protestant 
Churches  of  English  tongue,  it  is  becoming  yearly  more 
manifest  that  thoughtful  and  earnest  students  of  the 
Bible  will  continue  to  examine  the  history  of  revelation 
for  themselves,  and  will  not  rest  satisfied  with  conclu- 
sions that  do  not  commend  themselves  to  the  scientific 
as  well  as  to  the  religious  consciousness. 

For  the  popularisation  of  science  in  all  its  branches, 
which  is  so  characteristic  of  our  age,  has  accustomed 
men  to  examine  the  foundations  of  current  beliefs,  and 
to  acquiesce  in  no  results  that  have  been  reached  or  are 
defended  by  methods  which  science  condemns.  Histori- 
cal science  in  particular  has  made  vast  strides  ;  in  every 
part  of  history  traditional  ideas  have  been  upset,  and  old 
facts  have  been  set  in  a  new  light.  Even  schoolbooks  are 
no  longer  content  to  transcribe  ancient  sources,  but  seek 


PREFACE,  vii 


to  interpret  them  on  scientific  and  critical  principles. 
The  records  of  our  religion  are  historical  documents, 
and  they  claim  the  same  treatment  which  has  been  so 
fruitfully  applied  to  the  other  sources  of  ancient  history. 
They  claim  it  all  the  more  because  the  supreme  religious 
significance  of  this  history  gives  it  an  interest  to  which 
no  other  part  of  ancient  history  can  pretend. 

In  point  of  fact  the  Bible  has  not  been  neglected 
in  the  general  progress  of  historical  study.  A  vast 
amount  of  genuine  work  has  been  done  in  tliis  field, 
and,  thouGjh  much  still  remains  for  future  research, 
many  new  results  of  the  highest  importance  have  been 
reached  on  which  scholars  are  practically  agreed.  But 
unhappily  the  fruits  of  modern  Biblical  study  are  still 
very  little  accessible  to  the  general  reader.  Many  of 
them  are  only  to  be  found  in  learned  books,  encumbered 
with  technicalities  and  written  in  foreign  languages,  or, 
if  translated,  translated  into  that  peculiar  jargon  which 
only  translators  venture  to  call  English.  And  in  general 
the  best  results  of  modern  research  must  be  sought  in 
so  great  a  variety  of  books,  and  are  often  expressed  in 
so  controversial  a  form,  that  it  is  difficult  for  the  ordinary 
reader  to  follow  them  and  combine  them  into  an  intel- 
ligible whole.  It  is  far  easier  for  the  English  reader  to 
gain  a  just  view  of  the  present  state  of  inquiry  in 
Greek  or  Eoman  history  and  literature  than  to  learn 


viii  PREFACE. 


what  modern  scholarship  has  done  for  the  history  and 
literature  of  the  Hebrews.  And  j^et  it  is  manifestly 
absurd  to  think  that  the  very  best  use  of  the  Bible  can 
be  made  by  those  who  read  it  for  the  nourishment  of 
their  religious  life,  so  long  as  the  history  of  the  revela- 
tion which  it  contains  is  imperfectly  understood.  In 
the  interests  of  religion,  as  well  as  of  sound  knowledge, 
it  is  of  the  highest  importance  that  everything  which 
scholarship  has  to  tell  about  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments should  be  plainly  and  fully  set  before  the  intel- 
ligent Bible  reader.  The  timidity  which  shrinks  from 
this  frankness,  lest  the  untrained  student  may  make  a 
wrong  use  of  the  knowledge  put  into  his  hands,  is 
wholly  out  of  place  in  Protestant  Churches,  and  in 
modern  society,  which  refuses  to  admit  the  legitimacy 
of  esoteric  teaching. 

The  Lectures  now  laid  before  the  public  are  designed 
as  a  contribution  to  the  popularisation  of  modern 
Biblical  science.  They  cover  but  a  small  part  of  the 
Old  Testament  field,  and  they  purposely  avoid  the  tone 
of  theological  controversy.  There  are,  indeed,  many 
questions  relating  to  the  prophets  and  their  work  on 
which  controversial  feeling  is  still  keen ;  but  the  most 
hotly  discussed  of  these  lie  in  great  part  outside  the 
period,  closing  with  the  end  of  the  eighth  century  B.C., 
which  the  present  volume  deals  with ;  and  where  this 


PREFACE. 


is  not  the  case  I  have  sought  to  keep  my  discussion  as 
close  as  possible  to  the  historical  facts,  without  raising 
dogmatic  issues,  which  for  the  most  part  have  really 
very  little  to  do  with  the  proper  function  of  the  his- 
torical interpreter.  It  is  impossible  to  deal  frankly 
with  any  Biblical  problem  without  saying  many  things 
which  may  challenge  opposition ;  but  where  the  pur- 
pose is  to  give  real  help  to  Bible  students,  and  not  to 
advance  the  interests  of  a  theological  party,  the  contro- 
versial method  should  always  be  avoided,  for  the  ques- 
tions of  modern  controversy  are  generally  derived  from 
mediaeval  rather  than  Biblical  thought. 

The  period  with  which  this  volume  deals  is  that  of 
the  earliest  prophetic  literature,  and  therefore  presents 
the  prophetic  ideas  in  their  least  complex  form.  Some 
readers  may  be  surprised  at  the  very  small  amount  of 
developed  theolog)^  which  these  ideas  contain;  the 
elements  of  prophetic  religion  in  the  eighth  century 
before  Christ  are  marvellously  simple  in  comparison 
with  the  range  of  conceptions  with  which  the  modern 
theologian  is  accustomed  to  operate,  and  which  are  often 
traced  back  to  the  earliest  Old  Testament  times.  It 
must,  however,  be  remembered  that  the  theological 
thought  of  the  Hebrews  underwent  a  great  development 
after  the  time  of  Isaiah;  the  principles  of  the  oldest 
prophecy  are  germinal  principles,  which  unfolded  them- 


PREFACE. 


selves  gradually  and  led  to  results  which,  though  now 
familiar  to  every  one,  were  not  contemplated  by-  the 
earlier  teachers  of  Israel.  It  would  have  been  easy  to 
pause  from  time  to  time  and  point  out  the  line  of 
development  connecting  the  truths  of  the  earliest  pro- 
phetic religion  with  New  Testament  doctrine;  but  to 
do  so  within  the  space  of  a  single  volume  would 
have  unduly  straitened  the  exposition  of  what  the  first 
prophets  actually  taught,  and  were  understood  to  mean 
by  their  contemporaries.  If  occasion  offers  I  hope  to 
be  able  at  a  future  time  to  continue  the  history  through 
the  subsequent  stages  of  prophetic  teaching  ;  but  to  mix 
all  stages  together  and  read  later  views  of  truth  into 
the  earlier  teaching  is  not  likely  to  produce  anything 
but  confusion.  There  is  a  religious  as  well  as  an  his- 
torical gain  in  learning  to  read  every  part  of  the 
Bible  in  its  original  and  natural  sense.  Much  unneces- 
sary exacerbation  of  dogmatic  controversy  would  be 
avoided  if  theologians  were  always  alive  to  the  fact 
that  the  supreme  truths  of  religion  were  first  promul- 
gated and  first  became  a  living  power  in  forms  that  are 
far  simpler  than  the  simplest  system  of  modern  dogma. 
The  habit  of  reading  more  into  the  utterances  of 
the  prophets  than  they  actually  contain  is  partly  due 
to  dogmatic  prepossessions,  but  partly  to  a  lack  of 
historical  criticism.     The  notion  which  has  proved  most 


PREFACE. 


fatal  even  in  modern  times  to  a  right  understanding  of 
the  prophets  is  the  notion  of  the  later  Jews  that  all  the 
prophets  are  interpreters  of  the  Pentateuch,  which  either 
as  a  whole  or  at  least  in  its  most  essential  parts  is  sup- 
posed to  be  older  than  the  oldest  prophetical  books. 
This  opinion  has  only  of  late  years  been  radically  sub- 
verted by  the  demonstration — for  such  I  venture  to  call 
it — that  the  Priestly  Legislation  did  not  exist  before  the 
Exile.  I  know  that  this  conclusion  of  criticism  is  not 
universally  received  among  scholars,  but  it  makes  way 
daily,  and  at  least  it  can  no  longer  be  disputed  that  the 
ideas  of  the  prophets  do  not  presuppose  those  of  the 
priestly  parts  of  the  Pentateuch.  So  much  will  be  ad- 
mitted even  by  scholars  like  Noldeke,  who  do  not  accept 
the  whole  results  of  that  construction  of  the  history  of 
the  Pentateuch  which  is  generally  associated  with  the 
name  of  Graf,  and  has  been  mainly  worked  out  and 
established  in  detail  by  Ivuenen  in  Holland  and  Well- 
hausen  in  Germany.  That  I  accept  the  leading  critical 
conclusions  of  the  newer  school  of  criticism  will  be 
evident  to  the  reader  of  this  volume;  my  reasons  for 
doing  so  are  already  before  the  public.  But  I  trust  that 
it  will  be  found  that  what  I  have  to  say  with  regard  to 
the  progress  of  the  prophetic  teaching  is  not  dependent 
on  any  evidence  or  argument  that  lies  outside  of  the 
prophetical  books   themselves,   and    the   indisputable 


xiv  PREFACE. 


attention  to  works  that  are  indispensable  or  might  easily 
be  overlooked,  and  to  indicate  where  full  discussions 
may  be  found  on  questions  that  I  am  obliged  to  treat 
perfunctorily.  Besides  such  references  the  notes  con- 
tain a  good  deal  of  illustrative  matter  of  a  somewhat 
miscellaneous  kind,  including  some  things  specially 
designed  to  make  the  book  more  useful  to  academical 
students  and  a  few  observations  which  may,  I  hope,  be 
of  interest  to  fellow- workers  in  Biblical  science. 

I  have  only  to  add  that  the  Lectures,  as  now  printed, 
are  considerably  expanded  from  the  form  in  which  they 
were  originally  delivered. 


W.  KOBEETSON  SMITH. 


Edinburgh,  ScZ  Ap^il  1882. 


CONTENTS, 


LEOTUEE  I. 

PAGE 

ISEAEL  AND  JeHOVAH  .  .  .  .1 


LECTUEE   11. 

Jehovah  and  the  Gods  of  the  Nations       ,  .       47 

LECTUEE   III. 

Amos  AND  the  House  OF  Jehu  .  .  .90 

LECTUEE   lY. 
Hosea  AND  the  Fall  of  Ephraim      .  .  .144 

LECTUEE   V. 

The  Kingdom  of  Judah  and  the  Beginnings   of 

Isaiah's  Work  .  .  .  .191 

LECTUEE   VL 

The  Earlier  Prophecies  of  Isaiah   .  ,  .235 


CONTENTS. 


LECTUKE  VII. 

PAGE 

Isaiah  and  Micah  in  the  Reign  of  Hezekiah         .     279 


LECTUEE   VIII. 
The  Deliverance  feom  Assyria        .  •  .317 


Notes  and  Illustrations     ....     375 
Index  ......     441 


\ 


LECTUEE  T. 

ISKAEL  AND  JEHOVAH. 

The  revelation  recorded  in  tlie  Bible  is  a  jewel  which 
God  has  given  to  us  in  a  setting  of  human  history. 
The  love  of  God  to  His  people  now  is  the  continuation 
of  the  love  which  He  showed  to  our  fathers ;  and  Chris- 
tianity, like  all  else  that  is  of  value  in  the  spiritual 
possessions  of  mankind,  is  an  inheritance  the  worth  and 
permanence  of  which  have  been  tried  by  the  experience 
of  generations.  Such  treasures  are  not  won  without 
effort  and  battle.  What  is  appropriated  easily  is  as 
easily  lost,  and  the  abiding  possessions  of  humanity 
consist  of  truths  that  have  been  learned  by  laborious 
experiences,  relations  that  have  been  knit  and  strength- 
ened by  long  habit,  and  institutions  that  have  been 
shaped  and  polished  by  the  friction  of  practical  use.  A 
religion  fit  to  be  a  part  of  actual  life  cannot  be  exempt 
from  this  law,  and  revelation  itself  has  become  a  force 
in  human  conduct  only  by  first  becoming  a  factor  in 
human  history.  It  was  not  enough  that  God  should 
declare  His  will  and  love  to  man.  The  declaration 
required  to  be  incorporated  with  the  daily  lessons  of 


2  THE  LA  WS  OF  NA  TURK  lect.  i. 

ordinary  life,  to  be  woven  into  the  personal  experience 
of  humanity,  to  become  part  of  the  atmosphere  of  moral 
and  intellectual  influences  which  surrounds  every  man's 
existence,  of  which  he  is  often  as  little  conscious  as  of 
the  air  he  breathes,  but  without  which  spiritual  life 
would  be  just  as  impossible  as  physical  life  is  under  an 
exhausted  receiver. 

It  is  often  remarked  upon  as  a  strange  thing  that 
Jesus  was  born  so  late  into  the  world,  that  Christianity 
has  been  permitted  to  spread  through  slow  and  imper- 
fect agencies  from  so  narrow  a  centre  as  Judsea,  and 
that  the  divine  wisdom  deemed  it  fitting  to  prepare  the 
way  for  the  world-wide  religion  of  Jesus  by  that  long 
series  of  rudimentary  revelations,  addressed  to  a  single 
nation,  of  which  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  form  the  record. 
The  slowness  of  the  moral  process  by  which  God's  will 
for  our  salvation  realises  itself  on  earth,  the  incomplete 
establishment  of  the  moral  kingdom  of  God  in  the 
midst  even  of  professing  Christians,  and  the  fact  that 
for  long  ages  the  power  of  revealing  love  seemed  to  pass 
by  the  greater  mass  of  mankind  altogether,  and  to  deal 
very  tardily  and  partially  even  with  the  chosen  nation 
of  Israel,  appear  hard  to  reconcile  with  the  sovereignty 
of  the  divine  purpose  and  the  omnipotence  of  the  divine 
working.  It  would  serve  no  good  purpose  to  deny  that 
there  is  a  difficulty  in  understanding  these  things,  but 
the  difficulty  lies  less  in  the  facts  to  be  explained  than 
in  the  limited  point  of  view  from  which  finite  creatures 
contemplate  the  work  of  an  infinite  and  eternal  being. 


LECT.  I.  AND  OF  GRACE. 


That  the  eternal  and  infinite  God  has  anything  to  do 
either  in  the  way  of  nature  or  of  grace  with  the  finite 
world  of  time  is  a  mystery  which  we  cannot  hope  to 
comprehend  ;  but  in  itself  it  is  not  more  surprising  that 
revelation  follows  the  laws  of  historical  progress  than 
that  a  law  of  continuity  runs  through  the  succession  of 
physical  phenomena.  The  difference  between  nature 
and  grace  is  not  that  nature  follows  fixed  laws  and  that 
grace  breaks  through  them ;  there  are  laws  in  the  moral 
world  as  well  as  in  the  material  cosmos,  and  the  sove- 
reignty of  revealing  grace  does  not  lie  in  the  arbitrary 
quality  of  the  acts  in  which  it  is  manifested,  but  in  its 
dominion  over  the  moral  order  of  things  to  which  the 
physical  order  is  subservient.  In  revelation  God  enters 
into  personal  relations  with  man;  but  these  personal 
relations  would  not  be  spiritually  valuable  unless  they 
were  constituted,  maintained,  and  perfected  by  the  same 
methods  as  the  personal  relations  of  a  man  to  his  fellows. 
According  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Old  Testament  the 
whole  work  of  revelation  and  salvation  rests  on  the 
fact  that  man  was  created  in  the  image  of  God,  and  so 
is  capable  of  entering  into  intelligent  moral  relationship 
with  his  heavenly  father.  But  even  in  the  sphere  of 
ordinary  human  life  the  filial  relation  is  one  that  has  a 
gradual  growth.  The  mere  physical  fact  of  parentage 
is  but  a  small  element  in  the  meaning  of  the  words 
father  and  son ;  the  greater  part  of  what  these  words 
involve,  as  used  between  a  loving  father  and  son,  lies  in 
the  relation  of  affection  and  reverence,  which  is  not  of 


VIE  IV  OF  THE  LECT.  i. 


mere  physical  origin,  but  grows  up  with  the  growth  and 
training  of  the  child.  Thus  the  analogies  which  the 
Bible  itself  presents  as  our  guides  in  understanding  the 
work  of  divine  grace  lead  us  to  expect  that  revelation 
must  have  a  history,  conformed  to  the  laws  of  human 
nature,  and  limited  by  the  universal  rule  that  every 
permanent  spiritual  and  moral  relation  must  grow  up 
by  slow  degrees,  and  obey  a  principle  of  internal 
development. 

The  older  theology  was  not  sufficiently  attentive  to 
this  truth.  It  had  indeed  learned  from  the  parables  of 
the  Gospel  that  the  growth  of  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
similar  to  the  development  of  a  great  tree  from  a  small 
seed ;  but  it  did  not  fully  realise  that  this  analogy  not 
only  affirms  the  contrast  betw^een  the  small  beginnings 
and  ultimate  world-wide  scope  of  the  kingdom  of  grace, 
but  teaches  us  to  look  on  the  growth  as  subject  to  an 
organic  law  similar  to  the  physical  law  of  development 
in  a  living  germ.  The  very  idea  of  law  as  applied  to 
the  course  of  history  has  been  clearly  grasped  and  fruit- 
fully worked  out  only  in  recent  times,  and  therefore  it 
is  not  surprising  that  even  those  theological  schools 
which  made  a  serious  effort  to  understand  the  suc- 
cessive stages  of  God's  saving  dealings  with  man  did 
not  get  much  beyond  the  notion  of  a  mechanical 
series  of  covenants  or  dispensations.-^  And  in  parti- 
cular almost  all  speculation  on  this  topic,  down  to 
quite  a  recent  date,  fell  into  the  cardinal  mistake 
of  over-estimating    the   knowledge   of  divine   things 


LECT.  I.  OLDER  THEOLOGY.  6 

given  to  the  earliest  recipients  of  revelation.  The 
fact  that  the  work  of  salvation  is  one  from  first  to 
last,  that  Christ  is  the  centre  of  all  revelation  and  the 
head  of  all  redeemed  humanity,  led  to  the  idea  that 
from  the  first  the  faith  of  the  Old  Testament  behevers 
looked  to  a  personal  Messiah  as  distinctly  if  not  as 
clearly  as  the  faith  of  the  New  Testament  Church. 

This  assumption  involved  the  study  of  the  old 
dispensation  in  extraordinary  difficulties.  The  Old 
Testament  contains  no  explicit  declaration  in  plain 
words  of  the  cardinal  New  Testament  truths  about 
Christ,  and  it  was  therefore  necessary  to  suppose  that 
the  men  of  the  Old  Covenant  possessed,  in  addition  to 
the  written  Word,  certain  traditional  conceptions  about 
the  coming  Saviour,  which  gave  them  a  key  to  the 
symbolism  of  the  sacred  ordinances,  and  enabled  them 
to  draw  a  meaning  from  the  language  of  the  Prophets 
and  the  Psalms  which  does  not  lie  on  the  surface  of  the 
words  of  Scripture.^  This  theory  arose  naturally  enough 
in  the  ancient  Church,  which  held  that  a  similar  state 
of  things  continued  under  the  Christian  dispensation, 
and  that  the  help  of  ecclesiastical  tradition  was  still 
necessary  to  understand  the  mysteries  which  formed 
the  really  valuable  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  as 
well  as  of  the  Old.  But  when  the  Protestant  Church 
broke  with  the  doctrine  of  ecclesiastical  tradition,  and 
sent  every  man  to  Scripture  to  edify  himself  by  the 
plain  sensei  of  the  holy  oracles,  it  was  a  strange  incon- 
sistency to  continue  the  figment  of  a  hidden  sense  and 


METHOD  OF  lect.  i. 


a  traditional  interpretation  as  applied  to  the  old  dispen- 
sation. Far  from  reading  in  the  words  of  the  prophets 
a  profounder  sense  that  lay  beneath  the  surface,  the 
Hebrews,  as  their  history  abundantly  proves,  could 
hardly  be  taught  to  accept  the  simple  and  literal 
lessons  inculcated  upon  them  line  by  line,  and  enforced 
by  providential  discipline  as  well  as  by  spoken  words. 
It  is  plain  that  the  very  elements  of  spiritual  faith  were 
still  but  half  learned  by  a  nation  that  made  continual 
relapses  into  crass  and  immoral  polytheism,  and  the 
elementary  character  of  much  of  the  prophetic  teaching 
is  not  to  be  explained  as  vailing  a  hidden  sense,  but 
simply  by  the  fact  that  the  most  elementary  teaching 
was  still  not  superfluous  in  the  spiritual  childhood  of 
the  people  of  God. 

This  is  the  tfrue  state  of  the  case,  and  perhaps  tlie 
chief  reason  why  people  are  still  unwilling  to  admit 
that  it  is  so  is  a  fear  that,  by  stripping  the  prophecies 
of  their  supposed  mysteriousness,  we  shall  destroy  their 
interest  and  value  for  the  Christian  dispensation.  Such 
a  fear  is  altogether  groundless.  It  would  be  absurd 
to  expect  to  find  in  the  Old  Testament  truth  that  is 
not  in  the  New.  The  real  use  of  the  record  of  the 
earliest  stages  of  revelation  is  not  to  add  something 
to  the  things  revealed  in  Christ,  but  to  give  us  that 
clear  and  all-sided  insight  into  the  meaning  and  prac- 
tical worth  of  the  perfect  scheme  of  divine  grace  which 
can  only  be  attained  by  tracing  its  growth.  A  mechan- 
ism is  studied  by  taking  it    to    pieces,  an    organism 


LECT.  I.  THESE  LECTURES.  7 

must  be  studied  by  watching  its  development  from  the 
simplicity  of  the  germ  to  the  final  complexity  of  the 
finished  structure.  Or,  to  put  the  thing  under  a  more 
familiar  analogy,  the  best  way  to  understand  the  full- 
grown  man  is  to  watch  his  growth  from  childhood  up- 
w^ards,  and  the  childhood  of  the  Church  shows  us  in 
simple  and  elementary  expression  the  same  principles 
which  are  still  active  in  the  full  manhood  of  the 
Christian  dispensation. 

It  would  be  easy  to  illustrate  this  argument  by 
additional  analogies,  but  it  will  be  more  profitably 
elucidated  in  the  actual  study  of  the  prophets  and  their 
work,  to  which  we  are  to  proceed  during  the  hours  we 
spend  together.  In  these  Lectures  I  propose  to  adopt 
the  simplest  and  most  straightforward  historical  treat- 
ment. I  shall  take  up  the  prophetic  writings  in  the 
order  of  their  date,  and  look  at  them  in  connection  with 
what  is  known  of  the  prophet  and  his  times,  just  as  one 
does  with  any  other  ancient  book.  Instead  of  asking 
at  the  outset  what  the  prophet  has  to  teach  us,  I  shall 
inquire  what  he  desired  to  teach  his  own  contem- 
poraries to  whom  Ms  message  was  directly  addressed. 
In  this  w^ay  we  shall  get  at  the  plain  meaning  of  his 
words,  and  what  is  still  more  important,  we  shall  learn 
something  of  his  place  and  function  in  the  unity  of  the 
divine  work  of  revelation.  We  shall  see  the  principles 
of  revealing  and  redeeming  grace  shaping  themselves 
from  age  to  age  in  living  contact  with  the  life  and  needs 
of  successive  generations,  and  thus  I  hope  we  shall 


8  OBJECTIONS  OF  lect.  i. 

attain  a  more  reasoned  assurance  of  the  consistency  and 
supernatural  wisdom  of  God's  saving  dealings  in  all 
ages,  while  at  the  same  time  the  study  of  each  divine 
word  as  it  first  came  home  to  the  immediate  necessities 
of  the  people  of  God  will  make  it  easier  for  us  to  apply 
the  same  word  to  the  support  of  our  own  spiritual  life. 
The  details  of  this  practical  application  of  course  belong 
to  the  preacher  or  to  the  devotional  reader,  and  not  to 
the  expositor  of  the  Old  Testament  history.  On  the 
province  of  the  preacher  I  do  not  propose  to  trench,  but 
I  hope  that  we  shall  be  able  to  reach  the  point  of  view, 
and  appreciate  the  methods  and  principles,  from  which 
the  study  of  the  prophecies  can  be  profitably  under- 
taken with  the  design  of  personal  edification. 

There  is,  however,  one  question  of  a  general  nature 
to  which  it  may  be  well  to  devote  a  few  words  before 
we  enter  on  this  course  of  historical  inquiry.  The 
justification  of  the  general  conception  of  the  method 
of  revelation  which  I  have  just  indicated  must  -ulti- 
mately lie  in  the  proof  that  it  is  consistent  with 
historical  facts.  The  doctrine  of  an  organic  develop- 
ment in  the  plan  of  revelation  and  redemption, 
analogous  to  the  gradual  education  of  a  son  by  his 
father,  can  be  established  or  refuted  only  by  inquiring 
whether  the  analogy  is  justified  by  the  actual  course  of 
history  in  the  pre-Christian  childhood  of  the  people  of 
God.  But  the  whole  conception  of  a  progressive  reve- 
lation worked  out  in  special  dealings  of  God  with  the 
people  of  Israel  is  often  represented  by  modern  thinkers 


LECT".  I.  THE  MODERN  SCHOOL.  9 

as  involving  something  inconsistent  with  the  univer- 
sality of  the  divine  purpose.  There  is  a  large  and 
thoughtful  school  of  modern  theologians,  fully  possessed 
with  the  idea  of  a  divine  education  of  mankind,  and 
ready  to  do  sincere  homage  to  the  teaching  of  Christ, 
which  yet  refuses  to  believe  that  God's  dealings  with 
Israel  in  the  times  before  Christ  can  be  distinguished 
under  the  specific  name  of  revelation  from  His  provi- 
dential guidance  of  other  nations.  They  contend,  and 
so  far  they  are  undoubtedly  right,  that  God  prepared 
aU  nations,  and  not  the  Jews  alone,  for  the  reception  of 
the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus ;  but  they  also  maintain  that 
there  was  no  specific  difference  between  the  growth  of 
divine  truth  in  Israel  and  the  growth  of  truth  among 
other  nations.  The  prophets  who  were  the  organs  of 
God's  teaching  in  Israel  appear  to  them  to  stand  on 
the  same  line  with  the  other  great  teachers  of  mankind, 
who  were  also  searchers  after  truth,  and  received  it  as 
a  gift  from  God. 

In  one  point  of  view  this  departure  from  the  usual 
doctrine  of  Christians  is  perhaps  less  fundamental  than 
it  seems  at  first  siG;ht  to  be.  For,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
is,not  and  cannot  be  denied  that  the  prophets  found  for 
themselves  and  their  nation  a  knowledge  of  God,  and 
not  a  mere  speculative  knowledge,  but  a  practical  fellow- 
ship of  faith  with  Him,  which  the  seekers  after  truth 
among  the  Gentiles  never  attained  to.  This,  at  least,  is 
sufficiently  proved  by  the  fact  that  the  light  wliich  went 
forth  in  Christ  Jesus  to  lighten  the  Gentiles  did  proceed 

2 


10  MEANING  OF  lect.  i. 

from  the  midst  of  tlie  Old  Testament  people.  But 
behind  this  there  appears  to  lie  a  substantial  and  prac- 
tical difference  of  view  between  the  common  faith  of 
the  Churches  and  the  views  of  the  modern  school  of 
wdiich  I  speak.  The  difference  is  generally  expressed 
by  saying  that  the  modern  theologians  deny  the  super- 
natural ;  bnt  I  do  not  think  that  this  phrase  expresses 
the  real  gist  of  the  point  at  issue.  The  practical  point 
in  all  controversy  as  to  the  distinctive  character  of  the 
revelation  of  God  to  Israel  regards  the  place  of  Scrip- 
ture as  the  permanent  rule  of  faith  and  the  sufficient 
and  unfailino-  c^uide  in  all  our  relicjious  life.  When  we 
say  that  God  dealt  with  Israel  in  the  way  of  special 
revelation,  and  crowned  His  dealings  by  personally 
manifesting  all  His  grace  and  truth  in  Christ  Jesus  the 
incarnate  Word,  we  mean  that  the  Bible  contains  within 
itself  a  perfect  picture  of  God's  gracious  relations  with 
man,  and  that  we  have  no  need  to  go  outside  of  the  Bible 
history  to  learn  anything  of  God  and  His  saving  will 
towards  ns, — that  the  whole  growth  of  the  true  religion 
Tip  to  its  perfect  fulness  is  set  before  us  in  the  record  of 
God's  dealings  with  Israel  culminating  in  the  mani- 
festation of  Jesus  Christ.  There  can  be  no  question 
that  Jesus  Himself  held  this  view,  and  we  cannot 
depart  from  it  without  making  Him  an  imperfect 
teacher  and  an  imperfect  saviour.  Yet  history  has 
not  taught  us  that  there  is  anything  in  true  religion  to 
add  to  the  New  Testament.  We  still  stand  in  the 
nineteenth   century  where   He   stood  in  the  first;  or 


LECT.  I.  SPECIAL  REVELATION.  11 

rather  He  stands  as  high  above  us  as  He  did  above  His 
disciples,  the  perfect  Master,  the  supreme  Head  of  the 
fellowship  of  all  true  religion. 

It  is  a  bold  thing,  therefore,  to  affirm  that  we  have 
any  need  to  seek  a  wider  historical  foundation  for  our 
faith  than  sufficed  Him  whose  disciples  we  are.  And  I 
apprehend  that  the  apparent  difficulty  of  the  supposition 
that  the  whole  course  of  revelation  transacted  itself  in 
the  narrow  circle  of  a  single  nation  is  not  so  great  as  it 
appears  at  first  sight.  For  it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose 
that  God  gave  no  true  knowledge  of  Himself  to  seekers 
after  truth  among  the  Gentiles.  The  jSTew  Testament 
affirms,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  nations  were  never  left 
without  some  manifestation  of  that  which  may  be  known 
of  God  (Eom.  i.  19  ;  Acts  xvii.  27) ;  and  the  thinkers  of 
the  early  Church  gave  shape  to  this  truth  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  X0709  cnrepixariKO'^ — the  seed  of  the  Divine 
Word  scattered  through  all  mankind. 

But,  while  all  right  thoughts  of  God  in  every  nation 
come  from  God  Himself,  it  is  plain  that  a  personal 
knowledge  of  God  and  His  will — and  without  personal 
knowledge  there  can  be  no  true  religion — involves  a 
personal  dealing  of  God  with  men.  Such  personal 
dealing  again  necessarily  implies  a  special  dealing  with 
chosen  individuals.  To  say  that  God  speaks  to  all  men 
alike,  and  gives  the  same  communication  directly  to  all 
without  the  use  of  a  revealing  agency,  reduces  religion 
to  mysticism.  In  point  of  fact,  it  is  not  true  in  the  case 
of  any  man  that  what  he  believes  and  knows  of  God  has 


12  THE  POSITIVE  ELEMENT  lect.  i. 

come  to  him  directly  tlirougli  the  voice  of  nature  and 
conscience.  All  true  knowledge  of  God  is  verified  hy 
personal  experience,  but  it  is  not  exclusively  derived 
from  such  experience.  There  is  a  positive  element  in 
all  religion,  an  element  which  w^e  have  learned  from 
those  who  went  before  us.  If  what  is  so  learned  is  true 
we  must  ultimately  come  back  to  a  point  in  history 
when  it  was  new  truth,  acquired  as  all  new  truth  is  by 
some  particular  man  or  circle  of  men,  who,  as  they  did 
not  learn  it  from  their  predecessors,  must  have  got  it  by 
personal  revelation  from  God  Himself.  To  deny  that 
Christianity  can  ultimately  be  traced  back  to  such  acts 
of  revelation,  taking  place  at  a  definite  time  in  a  definite 
circle,  involves  in  the  last  resort  a  denial  that  there  is 
any  true  religion  at  all,  or  that  religion  is  anything  more 
than  a  vague  subjective  feeling.  If  religion  is  more 
than  this,  the  true  knowledge  of  God  and  His  saving 
will  must  in  the  first  instance  have  grown  up  in  a  defiinite 
part  of  the  earth,  and  in  connection  with  the  history  of 
a  limited  section  of  mankind.  For  if  revelation  were 
not  to  be  altogether  futile  it  was  necessary  that  each 
new  communication  of  God  should  build  on  tliose  which 
had  gone  before,  and  therefore  that  it  should  be  made 
within  that  society  whicli  had  already  appropriated  the 
sum  of  previous  revelations.  Some  true  knowledge  of 
God  might  exist  outside  of  this  society,  but  at  all  events 
there  must  have  been  a  society  of  men  possessed  of  the 
whole  series  of  divine  teachinos  in  a  consecutive  and 
adequate  form.     And  under  the  conditions  of  ancient 


LECT.  I.  IN  RELIGION.  13 

life  this  society  could  not  be  other  than  a  nation,  for 
there  was  then  no  free  communication  and  interchange 
of  ideas  such  as  now  exists  between  remote  parts  of  the 
globe.  Until  the  Greek  and  Eoman  empires  broke  up 
the  old  barriers  of  nationality,  the  intellectual  and  moral 
life  of  each  ancient  people  moved  in  its  own  channel, 
receiving  only  slight  contributions  from  those  outside. 
There  is  nothing  unreasonable,  therefore,  in  the  idea  that 
the  true  religion  was  originally  developed  in  national 
form  within  the  people  of  Israel ;  nay,  this  limitation 
corresponds  to  the  historical  conditions  of  the  problem. 
But  at  length  a  time  came  when  the  message  of  revela- 
tion was  fully  set  forth  in  Christ.  The  coming  of 
Christ  coincided  under  divine  providence  with  the 
breaking  down  of  national  barriers  and  the  establish- 
ment of  a  cosmopolitan  system  of  politics  and  culture 
under  the  first  Eoman  emperors,  and  so  Christianity  was 
able  to  leave  the  narrow  field  of  Old  Testament  develop- 
ment and  become  a  religion  not  for  one  nation  but  for 
all  mankind.^ 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  the  distinctive  character 
claimed  by  the  Biblical  revelation,  and  expressed  in  the 
creed  of  the  Churches  by  the  doctrine  that  the  Bible  is 
the  supreme  and  sufficient  rule  of  faith  and  life,  ulti- 
mately resolves  itself  into  something  which  is  quite 
capable  of  verification.  It  will  not  be  denied  that  the 
knowledge  of  God  reached  by  Gentile  nations  was  frag- 
mentary and  imperfect,  that  there  was  no  solid  and 
continuous  progress  in  spiritual  things  under  any  heathen 


14  QUESTION  OF 


system,  but  that  the  noblest  religions  outside  of  Christi- 
anity gradually  decayed  and  lost  whatever  moral  power 
they  once  possessed.  If  the  religion  of  the  Bible  can 
be  shown  to  have  run  a  different  course, — if  it  can  be 
shown  that  in  it  truth  once  attained  was  never  lost  and 
never  thrust  aside  so  as  to  lose  its  influence,  but  that  in 
spite  of  all  impediments  the  knowledge  of  God  given  to 
Israel  moved  steadily  forward  till  at  last  it  emancipated 
itself  from  national  restrictions,  and,  without  chang^inc? 
its  consistency  or  denying  its  former  history,  merged  in 
the  perfect  religion  of  Christ,  wduch  still  satisfies  the 
deepest  spiritual  needs  of  mankind, — then,  I  apprehend, 
the  distinctive  claims  of  the  Bible  and  the  religion  of  the 
Bible  are  set  upon  a  broad  and  safe  basis,  and  the  reve- 
lation of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  may  fairly  claim 
to  be  the  revelation  of  God  to  men  in  a  special  and 
absolute  sense.  It  is  not  necessary  to  encumber  the 
argument  by  comparing  the  w^ay  in  which  individual 
divine  communications  were  given  to  Israel  with  the 
way  in  which  the  highest  thinkers  of  other  nations  came 
to  grasp  something  of  spiritual  truth.  The  mode  of 
God's  communication  to  man  is  a  matter  of  detail ;  the 
essential  advantage  claimed  by  the  religion  of  the  Bible 
does  not  lie  in  details,  but  in  the  consistent  unity  of 
scheme  that  runs  through  its  whole  historical  develop- 
ment, and  gives  to  each  part  of  the  development  a 
share  in  the  unique  character  that  belongs  to  it  as  a 
whole. 

To  thoughtful  minds  it  has  always  been  a  matter  of 


LECT.  I.  THE  SUPERNATURAL.  15 


supreme  interest  to  realise  what  proof  of  the  truth  and 
sufficiency  of  the  Christian  religion  can  be  adduced 
apart  from  the  internal  impress  of  genuineness  which  it 
produces  on  the  believing  mind.  The  external  evidences 
of  religion  have  been  very  variously  set  forth,  and  per- 
haps no  one  statement  of  them  has  ever  been  quite 
satisfactory.  In  recent  times  the  whole  question  has 
assumed  a  new  and  startling  aspect,  through  the  attacks 
that  have  been  made  on  the  old  favourite  evidence  from 
miracle.  Instead  of  accepting  the  miracles  as  a  proof 
of  Christianity,  a  large  number  of  men,  who  are  neither 
unthoughtful  nor  irreverent,  have  come  to  regard  the 
miraculous  narratives  of  the  Bible  record  as  a  chief 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  its  acceptance.  It  is  felt  that 
the  reality  of  these  miracles  is  the  very  thing  in  the 
teaching  of  Scripture  which  it  is  most  difficult  to  prove ; 
and,  so  long  as  no  deeper  evidence  can  be  offered  of  the 
truth  of  the  Christian  religion  than  is  given  by  the  old 
argument  that  it  is  attested  by  miracle,  the  objection  is 
ready  that  this,  far  from  being  a  distinctive  peculiarity 
of  one  religion,  is  a  prerogative  to  which  all  religions 
lay  claim.  Indeed,  most  of  the  arguments  which  make 
men  unwilling  to  allow  to  the  Bible  the  character  of 
the  record  of  a  special  revelation  resolve  themselves 
into  objections  to  the  idea  that  the  narratives  of  a 
supernatural  character  which  the  Bible  contains  are 
different  from  the  miraculous  narratives  found  in  other 
ancient  histories.  And  in  like  manner  it  is  contended 
that  it  is  impossible  to  prove  that  the  truths  preached 


10  QUESTION  OF  lect.  i. 

by  the  prophets  came  to  tliem  in  any  other  way  than 
the  truths  proclaimed  by  Gentile  teachers. 

I  am  not  prepared  to  deny  that  these  objections 
may  be  put  in  a  form  which  has  great  force  against 
many  current  apologetical  arguments,  but  they  do  not 
go  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  There  is  an  external  evi- 
dence of  the  truth  of  the  Biblical  revelation  which  lies 
behind  the  question  of  the  supernatural  as  it  is  usually 
stated,  an  evidence  which  lies,  not  in  the  miraculous 
circumstances  of  this  or  tliat  particular  act  of  revelation, 
but  in  the  intrinsic  character  of  the  scheme  of  revela- 
tion as  a  whole.  It  is  a  general  law  of  human  history 
that  truth  is  consistent,  progressive,  and  imperishable, 
while  every  falsehood  is  self- contradictory,  and  ulti- 
mately falls  to  pieces.  A  religion  which  has  endured 
every  possible  trial,  which  has  outlived  every  vicissitude 
of  human  fortunes,  and  has  never  failed  to  re-assert  its 
power  unbroken  in  the  collapse  of  its  old  environments, 
which  has  pursued  a  consistent  and  victorious  course 
through  the  lapse  of  eventful  centuries,  declares  itself 
by  irresistible  evidence  to  be  a  thing  of  reality  and 
r-  power.  If  the  religion  of  Israel  and  of  Christ  answers 
these  tests,  the  miraculous  circumstances  of  its  pro- 
mulgation need  not  be  used  as  the  first  proof  of  its 
truth,  but  must  rather  be  regarded  as  the  inseparable 
accompaniments  of  a  revelation  which  bears  the  histori- 
cal stamp  of  reality.  Occupying  this  vantage-ground, 
the  defenders  of  revelation  need  no  longer  be  afraid  to 
allow  free  discussion  of  the  details  of  its  history.     They 


LECT.  I.  THE  SUPERNATURAL.  17 

are  not  bound  to  start,  as  modern  apologists  too  often 
do,  with  preconceived  notions  as  to  the  kind  of  acts 
by  which  God  made  His  presence  and  teaching  known 
in  Bible  ages — they  can  afford  to  meet  every  candid 
inquirer  on  the  fair  field  of  history,  and  to  form  their 
judgment  on  the  actual  course  of  revelation  by  the 
ordinary  methods  of  historical  investigation. 

It  is  on  these  lines  that  I  ask  you  to  join  me  in  the 
inquiry  on  which  we  are  about  to  enter, — not  in  a  spirit 
of  controversy,  or  with  preconceived  notions  as  to  what 
must  be  the  course  and  manner  of  a  true  revelation, 
but  with  a  candid  resolution  to  examine  the  documents 
of  the  Old  Testament  religion,  and  see  whether  they 
actually  possess  that  evidence  of  consistent,  progressive, 
and  indestructible  truth  which  entitles  them  to  be  re- 
ceived as  embodying  a  scheme  of  Divine  teaching.  In 
a  brief  course  of  lectures  our  attention  must  necessarily 
be  confined  to  one  corner  of  this  great  subject,  to  a  brief 
period  of  the  history  of  Kevelation  and  a  very  small 
part  of  the  Old  Testament  documents.  But  the  period 
and  the  books  with  which  we  shall  be  occupied  are,  in 
many  respects,  the  most  important  that  the  Old  Testa- 
ment student  has  to  deal  with.  They  are  very  little 
understood  by  ordinary  Bible  readers,  and  yet  they  form 
the  key  to  all  the  chief  problems  of  Old  Testament  study, 
and  without  understanding  them  no  one  can  hope  to  make 
real  progress  in  the  knowledge  of  the  Old  Testament  as  a 
whole.  The  work  of  the  prophets  of  the  Assyrian  and 
Babylonian  periods  falls  in  the  most  critical  stage  of  the 


18  THE  PERIOD  lect.  i. 

history  of  the  religion  of  Israel, — when,  humanly  speak- 
ing, it  seemed  far  from  improbable  that  that  religion 
would  sink  to  the  level  of  common  Semitic  heathenism, 
and  perish,  like  the  religions  of  other  Semitic  peoples, 
with  the  political  fall  of  the  nation  that  professed  it. 
It  was  the  work  of  the  prophets  that  averted  such  a 
catastrophe,  drawing  forth  with  ever -increasing  clear- 
ness the  elements  of  moral  and  spiritual  truth  which 
were  well-nigh  lost  in  the  corruptions  of  the  popular 
worship,  holding  up  a  conception  of  Jehovah's  holy 
purpose  and  saving  love  to  Israel  in  which  even  the 
utter  ruin  of  the  Hebrew  state  appeared  as  part  of  a 
gracious  plan,  and  so  maintaining  the  faith  of  Jehovah 
unbroken  and  victorious  when  every  other  part  of  the 
inheritance  of  Israel  was  swept  away  by  the  ruthless 
tide  of  Assyrian  and  Chaldaean  conquest.  JSTowhere  in 
the  Old  Testament  history  is  the  victory  of  true  religion 
over  the  world,  its  power  to  rise  superior  to  all  human 
vicissitudes  and  bestow  a  hope  and. peace  which  the 
world  cannot  take  away,  so  clearly  manifested  as  in  this 
great  achievement  of  the  prophetic  word.  In  the  long 
struggle  with  the  empires  of  the  East  the  Word  of 
Jehovah  was  tried  as  gold  in  the  furnace,  and  its  be- 
haviour under  this  crucial  test  is  the  best  demonstration 
of  its  incorruptible  purity  and  enduring  worth.  But 
there  is  another  reason  which  gives  this  part  of  the 
history  of  the  Old  Covenant  a  central  importance  to  the 
Biblical  student.  The  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  period 
is  the  age  of  written  prophecy,  the  only  age  in  which 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  PROPHETS.  19 

the  whole  movements  of  Israel's  spiritual  life  can  be 
closely  studied  in  the  writings  of  the  very  men  who 
directed  them.  The  period  between  Amos  and  the 
return  is  the  golden  age  of  Old  Testament  literature, 
which  stands  before  us  in  contemporary  records  more 
clearly  and  fully  than  any  other  considerable  period  of 
Hebrew  history.  And  for  this  period,  too,  we  now 
possess  in  the  Assyrian  inscriptions  a  most  valuable 
mass  of  contemporary  illustration  from  the  records  of 
the  foreign  nation  with  which  Israel's  history  was  most 
closely  involved, — a  new  source  of  light  which,  by  a 
singular  and  admirable  providence,  has  been  put  at 
our  command  at  the  very  moment  when  the  progress  of 
Biblical  study  has  concentrated  the  prime  attention  of 
all  scholars  on  the  prophets  and  their  times.^ 

And  now  I  trust  that  enough  has  been  said  to  justify 
the  choice  of  our  subject,  to  give  at  least  an  initial  con- 
ception of  its  importance,  and  to  define  the  point  of 
view  from  which  I  design  to  consider  it.  Let  us  turn 
Avithout  further  preface  to  the  matter  in  hand,  and 
begin  by  assuring  ourselves  in  a  rapid  historical  survey 
that  we  possess  a  sufficiently  clear  conception  of  the 
field  in  which  the  prophets  laboured,  and  the  political 
and  religious  condition  of  the  people  to  whom  they 
spoke. 

We  have  already  had  occasion  to  note  that  the  con- 
ception of  a  personal  revelation  of  God  to  man,  which 
underlies  the  scheme  of  Biblical  religion  in  both  Testa- 
ments, implies  that  God  approaches  man  in  the  first 


20  JEHOVAH  LECT.  i. 

instance  in  the  way  of  special  dealing  with  chosen 
individuals.  According  to  the  Old  Testament  prophets, 
the  circle  chosen  for  this  purpose  is  the  nation  of  Israel, 
the  only  nation,  as  Amos  expresses  it,  among  all  the 
families  of  the  earth  which  Jehovah  knows  in  a  personal 
way  (Amos  iii.  2).  To  the  prophets,  then,  the  nation  of 
Israel  is  the  community  of  the  true  religion.  But  it  is 
important  to  observe  how  this  is  put.  Amos  does  not  say 
that  Israel  knows  Jehovah,  but  that  Jehovah  knows  or 
personally  recognises  Israel,  and  no  other  nation.  The 
same  idea  is  expressed  by  Hosea  in  figures  drawn  from 
domestic  life.  Israel  is  Jehovah's  spouse  (chaps,  i.  to 
iii.),  or  His  son  (chap.  xi.  1).  Thus  the  basis  of  the 
prophetic  religion  is  the  conception  of  a  unique  relation 
between  Jehovah  and  Israel,  not,  be  it  observed,  indi- 
vidual Israelites,  but  Israel  as  a  national  unity.  The 
whole  Old  Testament  religion  deals  with  the  relations 
between  two  parties — Jehovah  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  nation  of  Israel  on  the  other.  Simple  as  this  con- 
ception is,  it  requires  an  effort  of  attention  to  fix  it  in 
our  minds.  We  are  so  accustomed  to  think  of  religion 
as  a  thing  between  individual  men  and  God  that  we 
can  hardly  enter  into  the  idea  of  a  religion  in  which  a 
whole  nation  in  its  national  organisation  appears  as  the 
religious  unit, — in  which  we  have  to  deal,  not  with  the 
faith  and  obedience  of  individual  persons,  but  with  the 
faith  and  obedience  of  a  nation  as  expressed  in  the  func- 
tions of  national  life.  We  shall  have  frequent  oppor- 
tunity as  we  proceed  to  familiarise  ourselves  with  this 


LECT.  I.  AND  ISRAEL.  21 

fundamental  Old  Testament  conception  in  its  practical 
aspects.  For  the  present  it  may  suffice  to  illustrate  it 
by  a  single  example.  In  the  New  Testament  dispensa- 
tion every  believer  is  regarded  as  a  son  of  God.  Under 
the  Old  Covenant  it  is  the  nation  of  Israel  that  is 
Jehovah's  son.  There  are  two  questions,  then,  which 
lie  at  the  root  of  all  study  of  the  prophetic  teaching — 
Who  is  Israel  ?  and  who  is  Jehovah  ? 

The  history  of  the  ancient  v/orld,  so  far  as  it  exists 
for  us,  was  transacted  within  a  narrow  strip  of  the  earth's 
surface,  running  eastward  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific,  so  as  to  include  the  lands  easily  accessible  from 
the  Mediterranean  waters  and  the  countries  of  Southern 
Asia  as  far  as  India  and  China,  but  excluding  the  great 
mass  of  Africa  and  the  northern  parts  of  Europe  and 
Asia.  Even  this  small  world  was  again  cut  in  two  by 
the  great  mountains  and  deserts  that  divide  Eastern  and 
Western  Asia,  and  the  far  East  which  lay  beyond  these 
boundaries  was  practically  an  isolated  part  of  the  globe. 
The  geography  of  the  Bible,  as  contained  in  the  tenth 
chapter  of  Genesis,  extends  from  Tarshish  in  the  West — 
the  Spanish  settlements  of  the  Phoenicians  in  the  region 
of  Cadiz — to  the  Eastern  lands  of  Persia  and  Media 
lying  between  the  Caspian  and  the  Persian  Gulf.  And 
here  again  we  have  a  further  limitation  to  make.  The 
nations  of  Europe  had  not  yet  begun  to  play  an  inde- 
pendent part  in  the  drama  of  universal  history.  To  the 
Hebrews  the  lands  that  gird  the  Northern  and  Western 
Mediterranean  were  known  as  the  Isles  or  rather  Coasts 


22  GEOGRAPHY  OF  lect.  i. 

of  the  Sea — a  vague  designation,  derived,  no  doubt,  from 
the  Phoenician  mariners  who  skirted  their  shores  without 
penetrating  into  the  interior.  Thus,  at  the  epoch  with 
which  we  are  concerned,  the  main  movements  of  Western 
civilisation  lay  between  the  mountains  of  Media  and 
the  Libyan  desert,  the  shores  of  the  Levant  and  the 
Persian  Gulf.  In  the  eastern  and  western  quarters  of 
the  region  so  defined  lie  two  great  alluvial  countries, 
fertilised  by  mighty  rivers,  and  producing  the  means  of 
life  in  such  abundance  that  they  not  only  sustained  a 
teeming  population,  but  supplied  their  inhabitants  with 
that  superfluity  of  natural  wealth  which  is  the  first 
condition  for  the  growth  of  material  civilisation.  Egypt 
on  the  Nile,  Babylonia  and  Assyria  in  the  Euphrates 
and  Tigris  valleys,  were  marked  out  by  nature  as  the 
seats  of  populous  cities  and  great  empires,  strong  enough 
to  defy  or  subdue  their  neighbours,  and  rich  enough  to 
cultivate  the  arts  of  life.  The  bridge  between  these 
two  great  civilisations  Vv'as  the  land  which  w^e  call 
Syria,  extending  from  the  Euphrates  to  the  Egyptian 
frontier,  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  de.:erts  of 
Northern  Arabia.  Syria,  as  well  as  the  huge  peninsula 
of  Arabia,  which  bounded  it  on  the  south-east,  and 
which  in  its  northern  parts  was  liabitable  only  ])y 
nomads,  was  occupied  by  branches  of  the  great  family 
which  we  call  Semitic.  In  language,  and  presumably 
also  in  race,  the  Semites  of  Syria  and  Arabia  were 
closely  related  to  the  main  stem  of  the  Assyrians  and 
Babylonians.      They  had  also  many  kinsmen   in   the 


LECT.  I.  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  23 

Delta  of  Egypt,  but  the  Egyptian  civilisation  acknow- 
ledged no  brotherhood  with  them,  and  held  itself  aloof 
from  its  Eastern  neighbours  (Gen.  xliii.  32). 

The  natural  features  of  Syria  were  not  favourable  to 
the  growth  of  a  great  and  united  nation  fit  to  meet  on 
equal  terms  with  the  empires  on  each  side  of  it.  For  a 
time,  indeed,  a  powerful  people,  called  Hittites  in  the 
Bible,  but  better  known  from  the  Egyptian  and  Assyrian 
monuments,  where  they  appear  as  Khita  and  Khatti, 
occupied  the  part  of  Syria  between  the  Orontes  and 
the  Euphrates,  and  from  their  capital  of  Carchemish 
(Jirbas  on  the  Euphrates)  seem  to  have  extended  their 
influence  far  into  Asia  Minor.'*  But  the  prime  of  the 
Hittite  monarchy  was  earlier  than  the  period  with  which 
we  are  immediately  concerned,  perhaps  indeed  earlier 
than  the  settlement  of  the  Hebrews  in  Canaan.  It  is 
possible  that  they  were  not  of  Semitic  stock,  and  they 
hardly  come  within  the  sphere  of  the  Biblical  history. 
Apart  from  this  mysterious  people,  tlie  inhabitants  of 
Syria  (I  still  use  the  word  in  the  ordinary  English  sense, 
including  Palestine)  were  broken  up  into  a  multitude 
of  small  nations,  as  was  natural  from  the  deserts  and 
mountains  that  divided  the  land.  By  their  language 
these  nations  can  be  arranged  in  two  groups,  according 
as  they  spoke  Aramaic  or  dialects  belonging  to  the 
Hebrew  stock.  In  the  English  Bible  Aramaic  is  called 
Syriac  (2  Kings  xviii.  26  ;  Dan.  ii.  4 ;  Ezra  iv.  7),  and 
when  Syria  or  Syrians  are  mentioned  we  are  not  to 
think  of  modern  Syria,  but  of  the  land  and  people  of 


24  THE  ARAM^ANS.  lect.  i. 

Aramaic  tongue.  The  Aramaeans  of  the  Bible  were 
partly  settled  in  Mesopotamia,  partly  west  of  the 
Euphrates  as  far  as  Damascus  and  the  borders  of 
Canaan.  They  formed  a  number  of  small  states,  of  which 
Damascus  was  from  the  time  of  Solomon  the  most  im- 
portant, at  least  in  relation  to  Israel,  exercising  the 
hegemony  over  a  considerable  district  to  the  north-west 
of  Canaan. 

Between  the  Aramaeans  and  Egypt,  again,  we  find  a 
number  of  small  nations  speaking  a  language  distinct 
from  Aramaic,  in  several  dialects  sufficiently  close  to 
one  another  to  be  mutually  intelligible,  —  Canaanites, 
Philistines,  Ammonites,  Moabites,  Edomites,  and  finally 
Israelites,  all  gathered  in  the  narrow  isthmus  of  habit- 
able land  between  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Desert, 
which,  from  Damascus  and  Hermon  southwards,  forms 
the  only  passage  between  the  two  great  seats  of  civilisa- 
tion and  empire  on  the  Euphrates  and  the  Mle.  The 
whole  habitable  area  of  this  isthmus,  which  on  the 
south  is  separated  from  Egypt  by  a  tract  of  desert,  is 
very  small.  It  may  be  roughly  compared  in  length  and 
breadth  with  Northern  England  from  the  Humber  to 
the  Scottish  border,  but  even  this  measurement  includes 
great  tracts  either  wholly  desert,  or,  like  the  wilderness 
of  Judaea,  capable  of  supporting  only  a  scanty  popula- 
tion of  herdsmen.  Eroni  north  to  south  it  is  split  up 
the  centre  by  the  great  natural  depression  of  the  Jordan 
valley  and  the  Dead  Sea,  the  surface  of  the  latter  lying 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  below  the  Mediterranean.     To  the 


LECT.  I.  PALESTINE.  25 

east  of  this  valley,  or  rather  trough,  lies  a  tableland 
gradually  merging  into  wild  desert ;  to  the  west  are  the 
mountains  of  Palestine,  intersected  by  fertile  valleys, 
which  in  the  north  are  wide  and  numerous,  and  slope 
westward  in  long  glades  towards  the  Mediterranean, 
while  further  south  the  maritime  plain  is  wider,  but 
the  mountains  are  stony  and  sterile,  and  the  valleys 
often  narrow  defiles,  till  at  length  the  cultivable  land 
passes  into  bare  steppe,  and  finally  into  absolute  desert. 
Even  in  its  geographical  features  this  narrow  region 
has  a  singular  interest.  It  is  almost  an  epitome  of  the 
ancient  world,  where  the  ocean  and  the  desert,  the  pas- 
tures of  the  wilderness  and  the  terraced  vineyards  of 
sunny  hills,  the  cedars,  fir-trees,  and  rhododendrons  of 
Lebanon,  the  cornfields  of  Jezreel  and  the  oak-clad 
glades  of  Tabor,  the  shores  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee  bright 
with  shrubbery  of  oleander,  the  hot  cane  brakes  and 
palm  groves  of  Jericho,  represent  in  brief  compass 
almost  every  variety  of  material  condition  which  enters 
into  the  development  of  Eastern  antiquity.  But  a  more 
important  influence  on  the  history  of  Palestine  lay  in 
the  fact  that  it  was  the  bridge  between  the  East  and  the 
West.  Before  the  opening  up  of  the  Eed  Sea  and  the 
Indian  Ocean  as  a  water-way,  all  the  through  traffic  of 
the  world  necessarily  crossed  it,  or  passed  along  the 
edge  of  the  adjoining  deserts.  And,  in  close  connection 
with  this,  the  cities  of  the  Phoenician  coast  became  the 
central  emporia  of  the  world.  It  was  Phoenician  sailors 
who   opened  up   the  Western  waters,  extending  their 


26  THE  PHCENICIANS 


voyages  as  far  as  the  tin  mines  of  Cornwall,  and  tapping 
the  trade  of  inland  Europe  by  their  stations  on  the  Gulf 
of  Lyons,  and  at  the  mouths  of  the  great  rivers  of 
Eussia.  How  Tyre  was  the  very  centre  of  the  world's 
commerce,  drawing  riches  on  all  sides  from  the  furthest 
lands,  we  still  read  in  Ezekiel  xxvii. 

The  Phoenicians  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  who  held  so 
important  a  place  in  the  ancient  Vv^orld,  were  only  one 
branch  of  the  so-called  Canaanites  or  Amorites  (the  two 
names  are  practically  interchangeable),^  who  at  the 
earliest  date  for  which  w^e  have  precise  information  not 
only  occupied  Palestine  west  of  the  Jordan,  but  had 
extensive  eastern  settlements  in  Bashan  and  Gilead. 
Their  language,  which  was  nearly  the  same  as  tlie 
Hebrew  of  the  Bible,  marked  them  off  alike  from  the 
Aramaeans  who  lay  to  the  north  and  from  the  Arabs  of 
the  southern  and  eastern  desert.  They  were  an  agri- 
cultural and  trading  people,  with  walled  towns  and 
considerable  material  civilisation,  but  politically  weak 
from  their  division  into  a  multitude  of  petty  states,  each 
with  its  own  kinglet  or  aristocratic  senate,  and  morally 
corrupted  by  a  licentious  religion,  in  which  drunken 
carousals  and  the  grossest  sexual  excesses  were  practised 
in  honour  of  the  gods.  These  gods,  which  were  wor- 
shipped under  a  multitude  of  local  forms,  had  a  twofold 
type — male  and  female.  The  male  god  of  any  com- 
munity was  its  Ba'al  (lord  or  owner) ;  the  correspond- 
ing female  deity  was  'Ashtoreth.  The  one  was  often 
identified  with  the  sun,  the  other  with  the  moon.     In 


LECT.  I.  AND  THEIR  RELIGION.  27 

general  terms  it  may  be  said  that  the  Canaanites  looked 
on  their  deities  as  productive  powers — givers  of  life, 
fertility,  and  increase.  Just  as  physical  life  is  divided 
into  two  sexes,  they  thought  that  the  divine  productive 
power  was  male  and  female ;  and,  assigning  to  this  sexual 
analogy  a  great  and  literal  prominence  in  all  the  observ- 
ances of  worship,  their  religion  easily  ran  into  sensu- 
ality, and  lent  its  countenance  to  every  form  of  immo- 
rality, if  only  performed  at  the  sanctuary  and  the  sacred 
feasts.  Instead  of  affording  a  sanction  to  sobriety  and 
domestic  purity,  the  exercises  of  Canaanite  religion  gave 
the  rein  to  the  animal  nature,  and  so  took  the  form  of 
Dionysiac  orgies  of  the  grossest  type.  Through  the 
Phoenicians  the  practices  of  Canaanite  worship  were 
carried  across  the  sea  and  introduced  to  the  Western 
nations,  and  wherever  they  came  they  formed  an  element 
of  pollution,  a  blacker  spot  even  in  the  darkness  of 
lieathenism. 

The  situation  of  Palestine  naturally  exposed  it  to 
invasion  from  diflerent  sides.  The  early  campaigns  of 
the  Egyptians  in  this  quarter  do  not  concern  our  pre- 
sent purpose,  and  the  western  movements  of  Babylonia 
and  Assyria  were  later  than  the  Canaanite  period.  But 
apart  from  these,  the  Aramaeans  from  the  north,  the 
Arabs  from  the  south  and  east,  were  constantly  pressing 
on  the  land.  The  relation  of  the  Northern  Arabs  to 
Palestine  has  been  much  the  same  in  all  ages.  Their 
hordes  make  periodical  descents  on  the  cultivated  land, 
which  are  easily  repelled  by  a  good  and  strong  govern- 


28  THE  HEBRE  W  NA  TIONS.  lect.  i. 

ment,  but  prove  successful  when  the  settled  inhabitants 
are  weakened  by  division  and  misrule.  So,  in  ancient 
times,  the  Midianites,  Amalekites,  and  other  tribes 
overran  the  land  from  time  to  time.  The  Amalekites 
seem  at  one  time  to  have  ranged  freely  as  far  as  the 
mountains  of  Ephraim  ;  and  the  population  of  the  east, 
but  especially  of  the  south,  in  the  wilderness  or  steppe 
of  Judsea,  contained  an  important  Arab  element  in 
Biblical  times.  Indeed  the  large  population  of  Judah, 
which  gave  that  tribe  such  a  preponderance  in  the  time 
of  David,  was  due,  as  can  still  be  proved  from  the 
Biblical  genealogies,  to  a  fusion  between  the  pure 
Jud^eans  and  other  families  of  nomad  origin.''' 

More  lastinoj  in  their  results  were  the  mio^rations 
of  a  group  of  small  nations  which  came  from  the 
direction  of  Aram,  and  acknowledged  kindred  to  one 
another.  They  were  four  in  number — Amnion,  Moab, 
Edom,  and  Israel.  The  Ammonites  and  Moabites 
settled  to  the  east  of  the  Dead  Sea,  on  the  verge  of  the 
great  desert,  taking  the  place  of  the  aboriginal  Zam- 
zummim  and  Emim  (Deut.  ii.  10,  20),  but  not  interfer- 
ing with  the  Canaanites  proper.  The  Edomites  found 
a  seat  to  the  south  of  the  Dead  Sea,  where  they  con- 
quered or  absorbed  the  early  troglodyte  inhabitants 
(Horim).  They  were  a  wilder,  less  settled  race  than 
their  northern  cousins,  and  appear  to  have  approached 
much  more  closely  to  the  Arabic  type.  Their  land,  as  it 
is  described  in  Gen.  xxvii.  39,  was  "  far  from  the  fat 
places  of  the  earth  and  from  the  dew  of  heaven  at)ove." 


LECT.  I.  ISRAEL. 


They  lived  by  their  sword — that  is,  by  robbery — and  the 
importance  of  their  position  lay  in  the  fact  that  the 
caravan  routes  from  Arabia  and  the  Eed  Sea  to  Gaza 
and  the  other  mercantile  towns  of  the  coast  passed 
through  their  territory.^  The  fourth  nation,  Israel, 
found  no  fixed  abode,  and,  crossing  the  southern  desert, 
dwelt  for  a  time  on  the  borders  of  Egypt,  where  they 
continued  to  live  a  pastoral  nomadic  life,  and,  though 
acknowledging  a  certain  dependence  on  the  Pharaohs, 
never  came  into  close  contact  with  Egyptian  culture.^ 
Their  most  intimate  relations  at  this  time  were  with 
Arab  tribes,  and,  when  the  Egyptians  oppressed  them  and 
tried  to  break  them  to  forced  labour  on  public  works, 
it  was  among  the  Arabian  Kenites  that  Moses,  the 
leader  of  Israel's  flight,  found  help  and  counsel.-^^  Once 
more  crossing  the  desert,  the  tribes  of  Israel  appeared 
after  long  wanderings  on  the  eastern  frontier  of  Pales- 
tine. It  was  only  by  the  sword  that  they  could  win  a 
place  of  rest ;  but,  respecting  tlieir  cousins  in  Edom, 
^loab,  and  Amnion,  they  fell  on  the  Amorites,  east  of 
the  Jordan,  and,  after  occupying  their  seats,  crossed  the 
river  and  established  themselves  in  Western  Palestine, 
not  by  one  sustained  and  united  effort,  but  by  a  multi- 
tude of  local  campaigns,  in  which  each  tribe  generally 
fought  for  its  own  hand.^^  A  war  of  emigrants  for  the 
possession  of  territory  is  always  bloody,  and  this  war 
was  no  exception  to  the  rule.  Whole  communities  of 
Canaan ites  were  exterminated  in  the  long  struggle,  for 
the  Israelites,  as  well  as  their  foes,  were  fighting  for 


30  THE  AGE  OF  lect.  i. 

existence,  and  the  "ban"  by  which  a  hostile  commu- 
nity was  devoted  to  utter  destruction  was  an  institu- 
tion of  Semitic  warfare  which  the  Israelites  had  in 
common  with  the  kindred  nations — for  example,  with 
Moab.^^  But  the  Canaanites  were  not  exterminated. 
On  the  Phoenician  coast  their  force  was  unbroken,  and 
many  strong  places  even  in  the  centre  of  the  land 
remained  unsubdued  till  the  time  of  the  Davidic  king- 
dom. Such  were  the  mountain  fastness  of  Jerusalem, 
long  esteemed  impregnable,  and  a  whole  series  of  walled 
cities  on  the  edge  of  the  fertile  plain  of  Jezreel,  where, 
in  fact,  after  the  first  tide  of  victory  was  stayed,  the 
tribe  of  Issachar  sank  into  the  condition  of  a  tributary 
(Gen.  xlix.  15).  The  struggle  lasted  for  generations 
before  all  the  Israelites  found  a  fixed  abode ;  the 
Danites,  for  example,  are  still  found  ranging  the  land 
as  an  armed  horde  in  the  days  of  the  grandson  of  Moses 
(Judges  xviii.),  when  they  at  last  found  a  settlement  at 
the  base  of  Mount  Hermon.  In  the  days  of  Deborah 
and  Barak  the  Canaanites  were  near  re-establishing  their 
mastery  at  least  over  Northern  Palestine,  and  the  tribes 
of  Israel  were  too  little  at  one  to  make  common  front 
against  them.  But,  on  the  whole,  Israel  maintained  its 
superiority,  and  the  large  Canaanite  population  which 
still  survived  in  all  parts  of  the  land  was  gradually  re- 
duced to  vassalship.  To  a  certain  extent  the  two  nation- 
alities beojan  to  fuse  and  form  intermarriages,  as  was  not 
difficult,  since  both  spoke  one  language.  Once  at  least  we 
tind  an  attempt  to  form  a  mixed  Hebrew  and  Canaanite 


THE  JUDGES.  3t 


state,  for  Shechem,  which  was  then  a  Canaanite  city  with 
a  Canaanitti  aristocracy  of  the  Bne  Hamor  family,  was 
the  centre  of  the  short-lived  kingdom  of  Abimelech, 
who  himself  apparently  was  a  Canaanite  on  the  mother's 
side.  Though  the  adventurer  Abimelech  failed  to  esta- 
blish a  dynasty,  the  temporary  success  of  the  experi- 
ment shows  how  far  the  original  antagonism  of  race  had 
been  softened,  and  the  condemnation  pronounced  by 
the  moral  sense  of  the  Hebrews  on  the  slaughter  of  the 
tributary  Gibeonites  by  Saul  proves  that  the  Israelite 
aristocracy  and  their  Canaanite  subjects  began  to  feel 
themselves  united  by  the  bonds  of  common  humanity. 
And  so,  in  the  age  of  the  Judges,  it  might  readily 
appear  that  this  invasion  w^as  to  run  the  same  course 
as  so  many  other  incursions  from  the  desert  into  a  land 
of  higher  civilisation,  and  that  the  conquerors  would 
gradually  become  assimilated  to  the  conquered,  from 
whom  the  Hebrew  nomads  on  their  first  introduction  to 
settled  life  and  agricultural  pursuits  had  everything  to 
learn.  At  the  close  of  the  period  of  the  Judges  the 
greater  part  of  the  Israelites  had  quite  lost  their  pastoral 
habits.  They  were  an  agricultural  people  living  in 
cities  and  villages,  and  their  oldest  civil  laws  are  framed 
for  this  kind  of  life.  All  the  new  arts  which  this  com- 
plete change  of  habit  implies  they  must  have  derived 
from  the  Canaanites,  and  as  they  learned  the  ways  of 
agricultural  life  they  could  hardly  fail  to  acquire  many 
of  the  characteristics  of  their  teachers.  To  make  the 
transformation  complete  only  one  thing  was  lacking — 


32  JEHOVAH,  THE  lect.  i. 

that  Israel  sliould  also  accept  the  religion  of  the  abori- 
gines. The  history  and  the  prophets  alike  testify  that 
to  a  great  extent  they  actually  did  this.  Canaanite 
sanctuaries  became  Hebrew  holy  places,  and  the  vile- 
ness  of  Canaanite  nature-worship  polluted  the  Hebrew 
festivals.  For  a  time  it  seemed  that  Jehovah,  the 
ancestral  God  of  Israel,  who  brought  their  fathers  up 
out  of  the  house  of  bondage  and  gave  them  their  goodly 
land,  would  be  forgotten  or  transformed  into  a  Canaanite 
BaaL  If  this  change  had  been  completed  Israel  would 
have  left  no  name  in  the  world's  history;  but  Providence 
had  other  things  in  store  for  the  people  of  Jehovah. 
Henceforth  the  real  significance  of  Israel's  fortunes  lies 
in  the  preservation  and  development  of  the  national 
faith,  and  the  history  of  the  tribes  of  Jacob  is  rightly 
set  forth  in  the  Bible  as  the  history  of  that  divine  dis- 
cipline by  which  Jehovah  maintained  a  people  for 
Himself  amidst  the  seductions  ot  Canaanite  worship 
and  the  ever-new  backslidings  of  Israel. 

To  understand  who  Jehovah  was,  and  what  He  was 
to  Israel,  we  must  return  to  the  deliverance  of  the 
Hebrew  tribes  from  Egyptian  bondage,  to  which  later 
ages  looked  back  as  the  birth  of  the  nation.  In  the 
land  of  Goshen  the  Hebrews  had  not  even  a  vestige  of 
national  organisation.  The  tribes  into  which  they  were 
divided  acknowledged  a  common  ancestry,  but  had  no 
institutions  expressive  of  the  unity  of  race ;  and,  when 
Moses  called  them  to  a  united  effort  for  liberty,  the 
only  practical  starting-point  for  his  work  was  an  appeal 


LECT.  I.  GOD  OF  ISRAEL.  33 

to  tlie  name  of  Jehovah,  the  God  of  their  fathers.  It  is 
not  easy  to  say  how  far  the  remembrance  of  this  God 
was  a  living  power  among  the  Hebrews.  The  Semitic 
nomads  have  many  superstitions,  but  little  religion.  The 
sublime  solitudes  of  the  desert  are  well  fitted  to  nourish 
lofty  thoughts  about  God,  but  the  actual  life  of  a  wan- 
dering shepherd  people  is  not  favourable  to  the  formation 
of  such  fixed  habits  of  worship  as  are  indispensable  to 
make  religion  a  prominent  factor  in  everyday  life. 
It  would  seem  that  the  memory  of  the  God  of  the 
Hebrew  fathers  was  little  more  tlian  a  dormant  tradi- 
tion when  Moses  began  his  work;  and  among  the 
Israelites,  as  among  the  Arabs  of  the  desert,  whatever 
there  was  of  habitual  religious' practice  was  probably 
connected  with  tribal  or  family  superstitions,  such  as 
the  use  of  teraphim,  a  kind  of  household  idols  which 
long  continued  to  keep  their  place  in  Hebrew  homes. 
The  very  name  of  Jehovah  (or  lahwe,  as  the  w^ord 
should  rather  be  pronounced)  became  known  as  a  name 
of  power  only  through  Moses  and  the  great  deliverance. 
At  any  rate  it  would  be  a  fundamental  mistake 
to  suppose  that  the  traditioral  faith  in  an  ancestral 
God,  round  which  Moses  rallied  his  brethren,  included 
any  developed  metaphysical  conceptions  such  as  we 
associate  with  the  idea  of  a  spiritual  God.  Not  the 
nature  of  the  Deity,  but  His  power  and  will  to  help 
His  people  were  the  points  practical  to  the  oppressed 
Hebrews.  A  living  God,  according  to  a  conception 
never  fully  superseded  in  the   Old   Testament,  must 

3 


34  MOUNT  SINAI.  lect.  i. 

have  a  kingly  seat  on  eartli  where  He  showed  Himself 
to  men,  and  this  seat,  it  would  seem,  an  ancient  tradi- 
tion placed  on  Mount  Sinai,  which  still  appears  in  the 
Song  of  Deborah  as  the  place  from  Avhich  the  divine 
majesty  goes  forth  in  thunderstorm  and  rain  to  bring 
victory  to  Israel.  It  would  be  a  profitless  task  to 
attempt  to  analyse  this  conception,  and  seek  a  symbolic 
meaning  in  the  poetic  language  in  which  it  is  clothed. 
The  Israelites  thought  in  poetic  figures,  and  we  must 
take  their  thoughts  as  they  themselves  present  them. 
The  storm  that  broke  on  the  mountains  of  Sinai  and 
rolled  across  the  desert  in  fertilising  showers  made  the 
godhead  of  Jehovah  real  to  them;  the  thunder  was 
His  voice  of  majesty,  4}he  voice  of  the  same  God  who 
wrought  the  great  deliverance  at  the  Eed  Sea,  and 
beyond  this  they  did  not  care  to  go.  The  new  message 
that  Moses  brouoht  to  his  brethren  was  not  an  abstract 
revelation  of  Jehovah's  spiritual  attributes,  but  an 
assurance  of  His  personal  interest  in  Israel,  and  a  pro- 
mise of  effectual  help.  The  promise  was  fulfilled  in  a 
marvellous  display  of  Jehovah's  saving  strength ;  and, 
when  the  proud  waters  rolled  between  the  Hebrews 
and  the  shattered  power  of  the  Egyptians,  Israel  felt 
that  it  w^as  a  nation,  the  nation  of  Jehovah. 

I  have  explained  in  a  former  course  of  lectures  ^^  that 
the  ordinances  of  the  Pentateuch,  in  which  tradition 
has  accustomed  us  to  seek  the  forms  under  which  the 
great  idea  of  Israel,  the  people  of  Jeliovah,  was  organised 
during  the   wilderness  wanderings,   are  really  of  very 


LECT.  I.  THE  PENTATEUCH.  35 

various  dates,  and  that  the  law  of  Israel  did  not  take 
final  sliape  till  after  the  Babylonian  captivity.  The  Pen- 
tateuch as  we  now  have  it  is  not  the  immediate  record 
of  the  institutions  of  Moses,  but  the  last  codification  of 
the  divine  teaching  begun  by  Moses,  and  carried  on  and 
perfected  through  many  centuries  by  the  discipline 
of  history  and  the  word  of  the  prophets  who  took  up 
Moses'  work.  The  sacred  writers  of  the  Old  Testament 
were  so  deeply  convinced  of  the  unity  and  consistency 
of  all  Jehovah's  teaching  that  they  did  not  attempt  to 
leave  an  historical  record  of  its  several  stages.  In 
every  age  their  one  concern  w^as  to  set  forth  a  clear 
testimony  to  the  whole  truth  of  God  as  they  themselves 
knew  it.  It  did  not  seem  important  to  them  to  dis- 
tinguish the  very  words  of  Moses  from  the  equally 
authoritative  additions  of  later  organs  of  revelation. 
Thus  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  determine  with  precision 
how  far  Moses  in  person  carried  the  work  of  giving  to 
Israel  divine  ordinances  fitted  to  express  the  new-born 
consciousness  that  Israel  was  the  nation  of  Jehovah. 
We  may  be  sure,  however,  that  his  work  was  carried 
out  on  practical  lines.  The  ordinary  judges  of  the 
people  were  still  the  elders,  or,  as  an  Arab  would  call 
them,  the  slieikhs  of  the  several  tribes  and  sub-tribes ; 
and  this  fact  implies  that  Moses  did  not  cancel  the  old 
customary  laws  which  already  existed  as  the  basis  of 
tribal  justice.-^*  But  the  new  circumstances  of  Israel, 
and,  above  all,  the  new  sense  of  national  unity,  which 
was  no  longer  a  mere  sentiment  of  common  ancestry, 


36  I  AH  WE  C;EDA0TH;  lect.  i. 

created  a  multitude  of  new  questions.  On  tliese  Moses 
had  to  decide,  and  lie  sought  the  decision  from  Jehovah, 
whose  ark  now  led  the  march  of  Israel.  It  is  only 
on  the  march  and  in  time  of  war  that  a  nomad 
people  feels  any  urgent  need  of  a  central  authority,  and 
so  it  came  about  that  in  the  first  beEjinninc^s  of  national 
organisation,  centering  in  the  sanctuary  of  the  ark,  Israel 
was  thought  of  mainly  as  the  host  of  Jehovah.  The 
very  name  of  Israel  is  martial,  and  means  "  God  (El) 
fighteth,"  and  Jehovah  in  the  Old  Testament  is  laliwh 
Qebaotli,  the  Jehovah  of  the  armies  of  Israel.  It  was 
on  the  battlefield  that  Jehovah's  presence  was  most 
clearly  realised  ;  but  in  primitive  nations  the  leader  in 
time  of  war  is  also  the  natural  judge  in  time  of  peace, 
and  the  sanctuary  of  Jehovah,  where  Moses  and  the 
priests,  his  successors,  gave  forth  the  sacred  oracle,  was 
the  final  seat  of  judgment  in  all  cases  too  hard  for  the 
ordinary  heads  of  the  Hebrew  clans. 

It  must,  however,  be  observed  that  the  idea  of 
executive  government  as  we  understand  it  is  quite 
unknown  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  desert.  The  business 
of  a  judge,  among  the  Hebrews  as  among  the  Arabs, 
was  to  declare  the  law  when  consulted,  not  to  enforce 
it,  or  even  to  offer  a  decision  that  was  not  asked.  This 
principle  held  good  alike  in  criminal  and  civil  cases, 
and  the  foundation  of  what  we  call  criminal  Law  was 
the  right  of  self-help  on  the  principle  of  exact  retalia- 
tion.-^^ Thus  Israel  entered  Canaan  without  any  de- 
veloped system  of  national  government.     As  the  tribes 


LECT.  I.  JEHOVAH  OF  HOSTS.  37 

moved  off  from  the  central  camp  where  the  ark  stood, 
and  won  themselves  dwelling-places  in  different  quarters 
of  the  land,  often  separated  by  districts  which  the 
Canaanites  still  held,  their  feelings  of  national  unity 
ceased  to  find  any  regular  expression,  tlie  Hebrew 
federation  became  weaker  and  weaker,  and  there  was 
no  central  authority  to  enforce  the  duties  of  political 
and  religious  unity. 

Now,  it  followed  from  the  circumstances  of  the 
Exodus  that  these  two  unities  necessarily  went  together. 
Jehovah  was  essentially  the  God  of  the  whole  nation, 
not  of  individual  families ;  every  act  of  worship  to 
Jehovah,  every  approach  to  the  sacred  judgment-seat 
at  the  sanctuary,  was  an  expression  of  national  feeling, 
which  lost  the  best  part  of  its  meaning  when  the 
Israelite  forgot  the  bonds  of  national  unity  tliat  had 
been  knit  at  the  Eed  Sea  and  in  the  v\dlderness.  But, 
in  fact,  the  Mosaic  sanctuary  soon  lost  much  of  its 
central  importance.  It  was  fixed  on  the  first  entrance 
into  Canaan  at  the  headquarters  of  the  armed  force  of 
Israel,  originally  at  Gilgal,  afterwards  at  Shiloh,  in  the 
land  occupied  by  the  strongest  and  most  martial  of  the 
Hebrew  clans,  the  great  tribe  of  Ephraim.  The  disper- 
sion and  isolation  of  the  tribes,  therefore,  brought  it 
about  that  Shiloh  became  the  local  sanctuary  of  Ephraim, 
and  was  not  regularly  visited  by  the  more  distant  tribes. 
This,  indeed,  did  not  imply  that  the  other  tribes  ceased 
to  do  sacrifice  to  Jehovah,  whose  altars  of  earth  or  un- 
hewn stone  were  seen  in  all  corners  of  the  land,  while 


38  JEHOVAH  AND  THE  lect.  i. 

in  many  places  a  priesthood  claiming  kinsliip  with 
Moses  administered  the  sacred  oracle  as  his  successors. 
But  such  local  worship  necessarily  came  into  contact 
with  the  Canaanite  service  of  Baal ;  and,  apart  from  the 
fact  that  the  luxurious  festivals  of  the  latter  had  a 
natural  attraction  for  the  sensuous  Semitic  nature  of 
the  Hebrews,  there  w^as  a  more  innocent  motive  which 
tended  to  assimilate  the  two  worships.  The  offerings 
and  festivals  of  Jehovah  were  acts  of  homage  in  which 
the  people  consecrated  to  Him  the  good  things  of  His 
bestowing.  These  w^ere  no  longer  the  scanty  products 
of  pastoral  life,  but  the  rich  gifts  of  a  land  of  corn  and 
wine,  which  the  Canaanites  had  taught  the  Hebrews  to 
cultivate.  Thus  the  religious  feasts  necessarily  assumed 
a  new  and  more  luxurious  character,  and,  rejoicing  before 
Jehovah  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  good  things  of  Canaan, 
the  Israelites  naturally  imitated  the  agricultural  feasts 
which  the  Canaanites  celebrated  before  Baal.  It  is  not 
therefore  surprising  that  we  find  many  indications  of  a 
gradual  fusion  between  the  two  worships ;  that  many  of 
the  great  Hebrew  sanctuaries  are  demonstrably  identi- 
cal with  Canaanite  holy  places  ;  that  the  autumn  feast, 
usually  known  as  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  has  a  close 
parallel  in  the  Canaanite  Vintage  Feast ;  that  Canaanite 
immorality  tainted  the  worship  of  Jehovah ;  and  that  at 
length  Jehovah  Himself,  who  was  addressed  by  His  wor- 
shippers by  the  same  general  appellation  of  Baal  or 
Lord  which  was  the  ordinary  title  of  the  Canaanite 
nature-god,  was  hardly  distinguished  by  the  masses  who 


LECT.  I.  GODS  OF  CANAAN,  39 

worshipped  at  the  local  shrines  from  the  local  Baalim  of 
their  Canaaiiite  neighbours.^^ 

The  groYv^th  of  this  religious  syncretism  not  only 
threatened  to  sap  the  moral  strength  of  the  Hebrews, 
but  boded  entire  extinction  to  the  national  feeling  which 
had  no  other  centre  than  the  religion  of  Jehovah.  And 
so  in  the  providence  of  God  it  was  by  a  series  of  im- 
perious calls  to  united  national  effort  that  Israel  was 
prevented  from  wholly  forgetting  Jehovah.  Every  in- 
vasion which  woke  the  dormant  feeling  of  patriotism 
woke  at  the  same  time  something  of  the  old  faith. 
There  was  no  patriotic  fire  in  the  religion  of  the  Baalim, 
which  had  not  even  stimulated  the  Canaanites  to  united 
struggle  against  their  Hebrew  conquerors.  In  battle 
and  in  victory  Jehovah  was  still  the  ancestral  God, 
shaking  the  earth  and  dissolving  the  mountains  as  He 
marched  from  the  desert  of  Seir  to  deliver  His  people 
(Judges  v.).  Hence  it  is  that  in  the  time  of  the  Judges 
every  revival  of  tlie  religion  of  Jehovah  is  connected 
with  the  wars  in  which  the  Hebrews  succeeded  in  main- 
taining their  ground  against  numerous  invading  foes. 

It  is  plain,  however,  that  the  religion  of  Jehovah 
could  not  always  stand  still  at  the  point  which  it  had 
reached  in  the  wilderness.  It  was  not  enough  to  have 
one  religion  for  times  of  patriotic  exaltation,  and  another 
for  daily  life.  A  God  who  dwelt  afar  off  in  Sinai  and 
only  came  down  to  Canaan  in  the  day  of  battle  was  not 
sufficient  for  human  needs.  It  was  necessary  that  the  old 
religion  should  become  master  of  the  new  and  altogether 


40  JEHOVAH  AND  THE  lect.  i. 

changed  life  of  tlie  Hebrews  in  their  new  seats.  Jehovah 
and  the  Baalim  had  to  contend  for  sovereignty  in  the 
ordinary  existence  of  the  Hebrews,  when  the  simplicity 
of  the  desert  had  inevitably  given  way  to  the  progress 
of  material  civilisation  in  a  rich  and  cultivated  land. 

And  here  we  must  ask  what  was  the  essential  differ- 
ence between  Jehovah  and  the  Baalim,  which  had  to  be 
preserved  amidst  all  changes  of  circumstances  if  Jehovah 
was  still  to  maintain  His  individuality  ?  In  the  first 
place,  as  we  have  seen,  Jehovah  represented  a  principle 
of  national  unity,  while  the  worship  of  the  Baalim  was 
split  into  a  multitude  of  local  cults  without  national 
significance.  But  this  would  have  been  an  empty 
difference  if  there  had  been  nothing  behind.  National 
unity  is  a  meaningless  thing  unless  the  nation  feels 
that  it  is  united  for  some  common  task.  Now^  Jehovah 
represented  to  Israel  two  of  the  greatest  blessings  that 
any  people  can  enjoy,  blessings  for  which  it  is  well 
worth  while  to  unite  in  sustained  and  strenuous  effort. 
The  first  of  these  was  liberty ^  for  it  was  Jehovah  that 
brou<2[lit  Israel  forth  from  the  house  of  bondaoje ;  the 
second  was  law,  justice,  and  the  moral  order  of  society, 
for  from  the  days  of  Moses  the  mouth  of  Jehovah  was 
the  one  fountain  of  judgment.  So  in  the  Ten  Words, 
the  fundamental  document  of  the  religion  of  the  Old 
Testament,  the  claim  of  Jehovah  to  the  exclusive  wor- 
ship of  Israel  is  based  on  the  deliverance  that  made 
Israel  a  free  people,  and  issues  in  the  great  laws  of 
social  morality.     The  cause  of  Jehovah  in  Israel  was 


LECT.  I.  GODS  OF  CANAAN.  41 

the  cause  of  national  freedom  and  social  righteous- 
ness, and  the  task  of  the  religion  of  Jehovah  was  to  set 
these  fast  in  the  land  of  Canaan  in  a  society  which  ever 
looked  to  Jehovah  as  its  living  and  present  head. 

The  idea  of  rigldeousncss  is  of  course  familiar  to  every 
one  as  a  cardinal  Old  Testament  conception.  The  idea 
of  liberty  may  sound  less  familiar,  hut  only  because  it 
has  two  aspects,  Avhich  are  covered  by  the  conceptions 
of  deliverance  and  peace.  Thus,  when  the  Psalmist 
speaks  of  rigldeousncss  and  jjcacc  kissing  each  other 
(Psalm  Ixxxv.  10),  he  expresses  precisely  the  ideal  of 
the  religion  of  Jehovah  which  we  are  now  considering. 
At  the  very  close  of  the  Old  Testament  dispensation  the 
same  ideal  meets  us  in  the  song  of  Zachariah,  "  That  we 
being  delivered  out  of  the  hand  of  our  enemies  might 
serve  Him  in  holiness  and  righteousness  before  Him  all 
our  days."  Here  indeed  we  have  one  more  idea,  that  of 
holiness,  wdiich  w^ill  come  prominently  before  us  as  our 
argument  advances,  but  which  it  would  be  premature  to 
dwell  on  at  present.  The  holiness  of  Israel  is  in  fact  a 
summary  expression  for  the  conception  that  the  wdiole 
national  vocation  of  Israel  is  a  religious  vocation  dis- 
charged by  a  worshipping  people,  inasmuch  as  the 
Judo-e,  Lawgiver,  and  Kino-  of  Israel  is  none  other  than 
Israel's  God. 

Every  true  thought  contains  a  deeper  meaning  and 
involves  more  important  consequences  than  can  be  seen 
at  once.  And  this  is  especially  the  case  with  religious 
trutii,  which  presents  itself  in  the  first  instance  in  the 


42  JEHOVAH  THE  CHAMPION  lect.  i. 

form  not  of  general  propositions  but  of  direct  personal 
experience.  The  early  Hebrews  did  not  think  about 
Jehovah;  they  believed  in  Him,  and  experienced  the 
reality  of  His  sovereignty  in  the  great  things  which  He 
did  for  His  people.  Thus  it  was  only  by  slow  degrees 
and  in  connection  with  the  historical  experiences  of  the 
nation  that  the  whole  meaning  of  His  religion,  the  full 
difference  between  Him  and  the  gods  of  the  nations, 
came  to  be  realised,  or  that  the  Israelites  learned  all 
that  was  implied  in  their  vocation  as  the  people  of 
Jehovah.  In  the  first  generations  after  the  conquest 
the  great  practical  question,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
w^as  whether  Israel  would  continue  in  any  sense  to 
retain  that  consciousness  of  national  unity  wdiich,  in  the 
absence  of  all  political  centralisation,  had  no  other 
rallying-point  than  the  faith  of  Jehovah.  We  have 
seen,  too,  that  the  struo'Gfle  for  freedom  ao'ainst  successive 
attacks  of  powerful  enemies  was  the  means  used  by 
Providence  in  the  age  of  the  Judges  to  preserve  at  once 
national  feeling  and  national  faith  in  Jehovah.  Jehovah 
in  this  period  appears  pre-eminently  as  the  champion  of 
Israel's  freedom,  the  divine  King  to  whom  Israel  owes 
national  allegiance,  and  whose  majesty  is  dishonoured 
when  His  servants  pay  tribute  and  homage  to  other 
nations  and  their  gods.  The  foreign  invaders  of  Israel 
encroach  on  Jehovah's  sovereignty,  and  thus  are  His 
enemies  too.  So  He  goes  forth  and  rallies  His  armies, 
the  armies  of  Israel,  around  Him,  calling  them  to  help 
Jehovah  against  the  mighty  (Judges  v.  23).     And  when 


LECT.  I.  OF  ISRAEL.  43 

the  victory  remains  with  Israel  the  song  of  triumph  ends 
with  the  prayer,  "  So  let  all  thine  enemies  perish,  0 
J  ehovah ;  but  let  them  that  love  Thee  he  as  the  sun 
when  he  goeth  forth  in  liis  might." 

At  this  stage  of  Israel's  religion,  pictured  most 
clearly  in  the  Song  of  Deborah,  the  presence  of  Jehovah 
with  His  people  was  quite  fully  realised  only  in  the  hour 
of  battle  and  victory.  The  ark  itself,  the  visible  token 
of  the  angel,  or  rather  embassy  of  Jehovah,  sent  by  Him 
to  direct  the  march  of  His  people  and  subdue  the 
Canaanite  before  them  (Exod.  xxiii.  20  sc^. ;  Num.  x.  33  ; 
Judges  ii.  1),  w^as  rather  the  sanctuary  of  the  host  than 
of  the  settled  nation,  and  after  it  was  fixed  at  Shiloh 
became,  as  we  have  seen,  little  more  than  the  local 
shrine  of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim.  In  the  Song  of  Deborah 
Jehovah  has  not  yet  a  fixed  seat  in  the  land  of  Canaan, 
but  goes  forth  from  Sinai  to  help  His  people  in  their 
distress.  Hence  the  establishment  of  local  sanctuaries 
of  Jehovah,  at  Dan,  at  Ophrah,  and  at  other  points 
throughout  the  land  during  the  period  of  the  Judges, 
must  not  be  looked  upon  as  essentially  a  retrograde 
movement.  It  is  true  that  these  local  shrines  exposed 
Jehovah -worship  to  the  great  danger  of  taking  up 
Canaanite  elements  and  assimilating  itself  to  the  worship 
of  the  Baalim,  and  thus  it  is  easy  to  understand  that 
from  one  point  of  view  the  age  of  the  Judges  may  be 
represented  as  one  of  continual  backsliding.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  these  local  shrines  brought  Jehovah 
nearer  to  the  daily  life  of  the  people.     He  came  down, 


44  THE  AGE  OF  lect.  i. 

as  it  were,  from  Sinai  and  took  possession  of  Canaan  as 
the  suzerain  to  whom  the  people  in  every  corner  of  the 
country  did  homage  for  the  good  things  of  Jehovah's 
land.  At  the  close  of  the  period  of  the  Judges  the 
religion  of  Jehovah  is  thoroughly  identified  with  the 
possession  of  Palestine.  "  They  have  driven  me  out  this 
day,"  says  David,  "  from  being  attached  to  the  inherit- 
ance of  Jehovah,  saying,  Go  serve  other  gods."  In  other 
words,  banishment  from  Canaan  is  now  conceived  as 
banishment  from  the  service  of  Jehovah,  and  the  reli- 
gion of  Jehovah  has  become  part  of  daily  national  life. 
Thus  we  see  that  the  long  struggle  that  was  inevitable 
when  the  religion  of  Jehovah  went  forth  from  the  desert 
and  came  into  contact  with  the  life  of  the  larger  world 
was  not  in  vain.  The  crisis  was  sharp,  and  Israel  had 
not  passed  through  it  unscathed ;  but  in  the  end 
Jehovah  was  still  the  God  of  Israel,  and  had  become  the 
God  of  Israel's  land.  Canaan  was  His  heritage,  not  the 
heritage  of  the  Baalim,  and  the  Canaanite  v/orship 
appears  henceforth,  not  as  a  direct  rival  to  the  worship 
of  Jehovah,  but  as  a  disturbing  element  corrupting  the 
national  faith,  while  unable  to  supplant  it  altogether. 
This,  of  course,  in  virtue  of  the  close  connection  between 
religion  and  national  feeling,  means  that  Israel  had  now 
risen  above  the  danger  of  absorption  in  the  Canaanites, 
and  felt  itself  to  be  a  nation  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
word.  We  learn  from  the  books  of  Samuel  how  this 
great  advance  was  ultimately  and  permanently  secured. 
The  earlier  wars  recorded  in  the  book  of  Judges  had 


THE  JUDGES.  45 


brought  about  no  complete  or  lasting  unity  among  the 
Hebrew  tribes.  But  at  length  a  new  enemy  arose,  more 
formidable  than  any  whom  they  had  previously  en- 
countered. The  Philistines  from  Caphtor,  who,  like  the 
Israelites,  had  entered  Canaan  as  emigrants,  but  coming 
most  probably  by  sea  had  disj)laced  the  aboriginal 
Avvim  in  the  rich  coastlands  beneath  the  mountains  of 
Judah  (Deut.  ii.  23  ;  Amos  ix.  7),  pressed  into  the  heart 
of  the  country,  and  broke  the  old  strength  of  Ej^hraim 
in  the  battle  of  Ebenezer.  This  victory  cut  the  Hebrew 
settlements  in  two,  and  threatened  the  independence  of 
all  the  tribes.  The  common  danger  drew  Israel  together. 
They  found  a  leader  in  the  Benjamite  Saul,  whom 
Jeliovah  Himself  designated  as  the  king  of  Israel  by 
the  mouth  of  the  prophet  Samuel.  The  resistance 
which  Saul  first  organised  in  the  difhcult  hill  country 
of  his  native  tribe  was  conducted  with  varying  fortune, 
but  not  without  success.  Saul  himself  fell  in  battle, 
but  his  work  was  continued  by  Abner  in  the  north, 
while  in  the  south  David  consolidated  his  ]}ower  as  king 
of  Judah  without  disturbance  from  the  Philistines, 
Vvdiose  suzerainty  he  was  content  to  acknowledge  till 
his  plans  were  ripe.  When  David  was  accepted  as  king 
of  all  Israel,  and  by  a  bold  stroke  found  a  capital  in  the 
centre  of  the  land  in  the  strong  fortress  of  Jerusalem, 
tiU  then  deemed  impregnable,  Israel  met  the  invader  on 
more  than  equal  terms,  and  the  Hebrews  became  masters 
where  a  few  years  before  they  had  been  servants. 

It  was  Jehovah  who  had  given  them  this  victory, 


4G  BEGINNING  OF  lect.  i. 

and,  what  was  more  than  any  victory,  had  at  length 
given  permanent  expression  to  the  unity  of  the  nation 
by  placing  at  their  head  a  king  who  reigned  as  the 
anointed  of  the  Lord.  The  first  crisis  was  past,  and 
thenceforward  Israel  could  never  forget  that  it  was  one 
nation,  with  a  national  destiny  and  a  national  God. 


LECT.  II.  THE  KINGSHIP.  47 


LECTURE    11. 

JEHOVAH  AND   THE  GODS   OF   THE  NATIONS. 

In  last  Lecture  we  followed  the  history  of  Israel  and 
Israel's  religion  down  to  the  consolidation  of  the  state 
imder  Saul  and  David.  Throughout  the  period  of  the 
Judges,  neither  the  nationality  of  Israel  nor  the  reli- 
gion of  Jehovah  stood  on  a  sure  footing.  The  tribes  of 
Israel  were  broken  up  into  isolated  fractions,  and  often 
seemed  on  the  point  of  absorption  among  the  Canaan- 
ites ;  and  the  religion  of  Jehovah  in  like  manner,  which 
lost  the  best  part  of  its  original  meaning  when  divorced 
from  the  idea  of  national  unity,  threatened  to  disappear 
in  the  Canaanite  Baal  worship  before  it  could  succeed 
in  adapting  itself  to  the  change  from  nomad  to  agricul- 
tural life.  Both  these  dangers  were  at  length  sur- 
mounted, and,  whatever  physical  and  political  circum- 
stances may  have  conspired  towards  the  result,^  it  was 
the  faith  of  Jehovah  that  united  the  Hebrews  to  final 
victory,  and  Jehovah  who  crowned  His  gift  of  the 
goodly  land  of  Canaan  by  bestowing  on  Israel  a  king  to 
reign  in  His  name,  and  make  it  at  length  a  real  nation 
instead  of  a  loose  federation  of  tribes.^    And  so  the  reli- 


48  RELIGIOUS  UNITY  lect.  ii. 

gion  of  Jehovah  was  not  only  a  necessary  part  of  the  state, 
but  the  chief  cornerstone  of  the  political  edifice.  To 
Jehovah  Israel  owed,  not  only  the  blessings  of  life,  but 
national  existence  and  all  the  principles  of  social  order  ; 
and  through  His  priests,  His  prophets,  but  above  all 
His  anointed  king,  He  was  the  source  of  all  authority, 
and  the  fountain  of  all  law  and  judgment  in  the  land. 

In  principle,  this  paramount  position  of  Jehovah 
the  God  of  Israel  was  never  agaiu  disputed.  The 
kingdom  of  David  was  torn  asunder,  and  new  dynasties 
reigned  in  ISTorthern  Israel.  But  the  kings  of  Ephraim, 
not  less  than  the  house  of  David,  reigned  in  Jehovah's 
name,  and  derived  their  authority  from  Him  (1  Kings 
xi.  31  sc%  ;  2  Kings  ix.  3).  The  sanctuaries  founded 
by  Jeroboam  were  sanctuaries  of  the  God  who  brought 
up  Israel  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt  (1  Kings  xii.  28) ; 
and  even  Ahab,  who  provoked  so  bitter  a  religious 
conflict  by  making  room  in  Samaria  for  the  Baal  of  his 
Tyrian  queen,  did  not  give  up  the  religion  of  his  ances- 
tors; for  it  was  Jehovah's  prophets  whom  he  consulted 
in  time  of  need,  and  Jehovah  was  the  God  whose  sus- 
taining help  and  loftiness  he  acknowledged  in  giving 
names  to  his  sons.  In  the  north  not  less  than  in  the 
south  to  forsake  Jehovah  was  a  crime  against  the  state, 
and  the  technical  expression  for  treason  was  to  abjure 
God  and  the  King  (1  Kings  xxi.  13). 

In  virtue  of  their  common  religion  the  Israelites  of 
the  north  and  south  retained  a  sense  of  essential  unity 
in  spite  of  political  separation  and  repeated  wars  ;  and 


LECT.  II.  OF  ISRAEL.  49 

it  was  felt  that  the  division  of  the  tribes  was  inconsistent 
with  the  true  destiny  of  Jehovah's  people.  We  shall 
have  repeated  opportunity  to  observe  how  this  feeling 
asserts  itself  in  the  teaching  of  the  prophets,  but  it  was 
a  feeling  in  which  all  Israelites  participated,  and  which 
had  at  least  as  great  strength  in  Ephraini  as  in  Judah. 
The  so-called  Blessing  of  Moses  (which  does  not  itself 
claim  this  name,  but  on  the  contrary  bears  clear  internal 
marks  of  having  been  written  in  the  kingdom  of 
Ephraim)  remembers  Jiidah  with  affection,  and  prays 
that  he  may  be  strengthened  against  his  enemies,  and 
again  restored  to  union  with  his  brethren  (Deut.  xxxiii.  7). 
But  while  tlie  religion  of  Jehovah  had  thus  acquired 
a  fixed  national  character,  it  would  be  a  great  mistake 
to  suppose  that  it  already  presented  itself  to  the  mass 
of  the  people,  as  it  did  to  the  later  Jews,  as  something 
altogether  dissimilar  in  principle  and  in  details  from 
the  religions  of  the  surrounding  nations.  The  Jews 
after  the  exile  not  only  had  a  separate  religion,  but  a 
religion  which  made  them  a  separate  nation,  distinct 
from  the  Gentiles  in  all  their  habits  of  life  and  thought. 
In  old  Israel  it  was  not  so.  The  possession  of  a  national 
God,  to  whom  the  nation  owed  homage,  and  in  whose 
name  kings  reigned  and  judges  administered  justice, 
was  not  in  itself  a  thing  peculiar  to  Israel.  A  national 
religion  and  sacred  laws  are  part  of  the  constitution  of 
every  ancient  slate,  and  among  the  nations  most  nearly 
akin  to  the  Hebrews  these  ideas  took  a  shape  which, 
so  far  as  mere  externals  were  concerned,  bore  a  close 


50  COMMON  FEATURES  lect.  ii. 

family  likeness  to  the  religion  of  Jehovah.  Among  the 
Semitic  i^eoples  it  is  quite  the  rule  that  each  tribe  or 
nation  should  liave  its  tribal  or  national  God.  This  of 
course  does  not  imply  a  monotheistic  faith  ;  the  Am- 
monite who  worshipped  Milcom,  the  Moabite  who  as- 
cribed his  prosperity  to  Chemosh,  did  not  deny  the 
existence  of  other  supernatural  beings,  who  had  power 
to  help  or  hurt  men,  and  were  accessible  to  the  prayers 
and  offerings  of  their  worshippers.  But  the  national 
god  in  each  case  was  regarded  as  the  divine  lord,  and 
often  as  the  divine  father,  of  his  nation,  while  other 
deities  were  either  subordinate  to  liim,  or  had  the  seat 
of  their  power  in  other  lands,  or,  in  the  case  of  the  gods 
of  neiglibouring  nations,  were  his  rivals  and  the  enemies 
of  his  people.  He  was  therefore  the  god  to  be  looked 
to  in  all  national  concerns ;  lie  had  a  right  to  national 
homage,  and,  as  we  learn  expressly,  in  the  case  of 
Chemosh,  from  the  stone  erected  by  Mesha  to  com- 
memorate his  victories  over  Israel,  national  misfortune 
was  ascribed  to  his  wrath,  national  success  to  his 
favour.^  It  was  he  too  that  was  the  ultimate  director  of 
all  national  policy.  Mesha  tells  us  that  it  was  Chemosh 
who  commanded  him  to  assault  this  or  that  city,  and 
who  drove  out  the  king  of  Israel  before  him,  giving 
him  to  see  his  desire  on  all  his  enemies.  The  parallel- 
ism with  the  Old  Testament  extends,  you  see,  not  only 
to  the  ideas  but  to  the  very  words.  But  the  parallelism 
is  not  confined  to  such  near  cousins  of  the  Israelites 
as  the  Moabites.      Equally  striking  analogies  to  Old 


LECT.  II.  OF  SEMITIC  RELIGION.  51 

Testament  tliouglits  and  expressions  are  found  on  the 
Phoenician  monuments.  As  the  kings  of  Israel  ascribe 
their  sovereignty  to  the  grant  of  Jehovah,  so  the  king  of 
Gebal  on  tlie  great  monument  of  Bybhis  declares  that 
it  was  the  divine  queen  of  Byblus  who  set  him  as  king 
over  the  city.  As  the  psalmist  of  Ps.  cxvi.  says,  "  I  take 
up  the  cup  of  salvation,  and  call  upon  the  name  of 
Jehovah,"  so  this  heathen  kino'  is  figured  standinof 
before  the  goddess  with  a  cup  in  his  hand,  and  exclaim- 
ing, "I  call  upon  my  lady  the  sovereign  of  Gebal,  because 
she  hath  heard  my  voice,  and  dealt  graciously  with  me." 
And  just  as  the  prayer  for  life  and  blessing  to  the  king 
of  Israel  in  Psalm  Ixxii.  is  a  prayer  for  a  king  judging 
in  ric^hteousness,  the  Phcenician  o-oddess  is  invoked  to 
bless  lehawmelek,  kino-  of  Gebal,  and  Q;ive  him  life 
and  prolong  his  days  in  Gebal,  because  he  is  a  just 
king,  and  to  give  him  favour  in  the  eyes  of  gods  and 
men.'* 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  add  to  these  analogies 
even  from  the  scanty  materials  at  our  command,  con- 
sisting mainly  of  a  few  weather-worn  inscriptions  hewn 
by  the  command  of  ancient  kings.  But  it  is  not 
necessary  to  do  so ;  I  have  quoted  enough  to  show  that 
the  characteristic  conception  of  Jehovah  as  the  national 
God  of  Israel  is  reproduced  Avith  very  similar  features, 
expressed  in  very  similar  language,  in  the  religions  of  ^ 
the  surrounding  nations.  The  most  important  point  to 
carry  with  us  is  the  bearing  of  these  observations  on 
the  current  conception  of  the  Hebrew  theocracy.     The 


52  THE  HEBREW  lect.  ii. 

word  theocracy,  wliicli  has  had  such  vogue  among 
Christian  theologians,  is  the  invention  of  Josephus,  who 
observes  in  his  second  book  against  Apion  (chap,  xvi.) 
that,  while  other  nations  had  a  great  variety  of  institu- 
tions and  laws,  some  states  being  monarchies,  others 
oligarchies,  and  others  again  republics,  Moses  gave  to 
his  nation  the  unique  form  of  a  theocracy,  assigning  all 
authority  and  power  to  God,  teaching  the  Israelites  to 
look  to  Him  as  the  source  of  all  blessings  to  the  nation 
or  to  individuals,  and  their  help  in  every  distress,  making 
all  the  virtues,  as  justice,  self-command,  temperance,  and 
civil  concord,  parts  of  I3iety,  and  subjecting  the  Avhole 
order  of  society  to  a  system  of  divine  law.  Nothing 
gives  so  much  currency  to  an  idea  as  a  happy  catch- 
word, and  so  people  have  gone  on  to  this  day  using  the 
word  theocracy,  or  God-kingship,  to  express  the  differ- 
ence between  the  constitution  of  Israel  and  all  other 
nations.  But  in  reality,  as  we  now  see,  the  word 
theocracy  expresses  precisely  that  feature  in  the  religion 
of  Israel  which  it  had  in  common  with  the  faiths  of  the 
surrounding  nations.  They  too  had  each  a  supreme 
god,  whose  favour  or  displeasure  w^as  viewed  as  the 
cause  of  all  success  or  misfortune,  and  whose  revela- 
tions were  looked  to  as  commands  directing  all  national 
undertakings.  This  god  was  conceived  as  a  divine  king, 
and  was  often  invoked  by  this  nam^e.  Moloch,  or 
Milcom,  for  example — the  name  of  the  god  of  the 
Ammonites — is  simply  the  word  king,  and  the  Tyrian 
sun-god  in  like  manner  was  called  Melkarth,  "  king  of 


LECT.  II.  THEOCRACY.  53 

the  city."  The  human  king  reigned  by  the  favour  and 
gift  of  his  divine  Lord,  and,  as  we  see  from  the  stone  of 
Gebal,  the  exercise  of  kingly  justice  was  under  the  special 
protection  of  the  godhead.  Perhaps  the  most  character- 
istic expression  of  the  theocratic  idea  is  the  regular 
payment  to  the  sanctuary  of  tithe,  or  tribute,  such  as 
human  kings  claimed  from  the  produce  of  the  soil  (1 
Sam.  viii.  15,  17) ;  for  this  was  an  act  of  homage 
acknowledging  the  god  as  tlie  sovereign  of  tlie  land. 
But  the  tithe  is  not  confined  to  Israel.  It  is  found 
among  other  nations,  and  in  Tyre  was  paid  to  the  divine 
king  Melkarth.^ 

The  religious  constitution  of  Israel;  then,  as  laid 
down  by  Moses  and  consolidated  in  tlie  institution  of 
the  kingship,  was  not  the  entirely  unique  thing  that  it 
is  frequently  supposed  to  be.  Indeed,  if  Moses  had 
brought  in  a  whole  system  of  new  and  utterly  revolu- 
tionary ideas  he  could  not  have  carried  the  people  with 
him  to  any  practical  effect.  There  was  a  great  difference 
between  the  religion  of  Israel  and  other  religions ;  but 
that  difference  cannot  be  reduced  to  an  abstract  formula ; 
it  lay  in  the  personal  difference,  if  I  may  so  speak, 
between  Jehovah  and  the  gods  of  the  nations,  and  all 
that  lay  in  it  only  came  out  bit  by  bit  in  the  course  of 
a  history  which  was  ruled  by  Jehovah's  providence,  and 
shaped  by  Jehovah's  love. 

From  these  considerations,  we  are  able  to  understand 
what  is  often  a  great  puzzle  to  Bible  readers,  the  way, 
namely,  in  which  the  Old  Testament,  especially  in  its 


54  JEHOVAH  AND 


\ 


earlier  parts,  speaks  of  the  gods  of  the  nations. 
Jehovah  is  not  generally  spoken  of  in  the  older  parts  of 
the  Hebrew  literature  as  the  absolutely  one  God,  but 
only  as  the  one  God  of  Israel;  and  it  is  taken  to  be 
quite  natural  and  a  matter  of  course  that  other  nations 
have  other  gods.  The  prophets,  indeed,  teach  with 
increasing  clearness  that  these  other  gods  are,  in  point 
of  fact,  no  gods  at  all,  mere  idols,  dead  things  that 
cannot  help  their  worshippers.  But  this  point  of  view 
was  not  clearly  before  the  mind  of  all  "Israelites  at  all 
times.  Another  and  no  doubt  an  older  habit  of  thought 
does  not  say  that  there  is  no  god  except  Jehovah,  but 
only  that  there  is  none  among  the  gods  like  him  (Exod. 
XV.  11).  According  to  the  words  of  Jephthah  (Judges 
xi.  24),  the  natural  order  of  things  is  that  Israel  should 
inherit  the  land  which  Jehovah  has  enabled  them  to 
conquer,  while  the  invader  who  attempts  to  encroach  on 
this  inheritance  ought  to  be  content  with  the  lands 
which  Chemosh  his  god  has  given  him.  And  David 
takes  it  for  granted  that  a  man  who  is  excluded  from 
the  commonwealth  of  Israel,  "the  inheritance  of 
Jehovah,"  must  go  and  serve  other  gods  (1  Sam.  xxvi. 
19).  In  truth,  the  great  deliverance  which  manifested 
Jehovah  to  the  Hebrews  as  their  king  and  Saviour 
did  not  necessarily  and  at  once  compel  them  to  deny 
the  existence  of  other  superhuman  beings  capable  of 
influencing  the  affairs  of  mankind.  A  man  might 
believe  firmly  in  Jehovah,  Israel's  God,  and  feel  secure 
in  His  strength  and  love,  without  being  drawn  into  the 


OTHER  GODS.  55 


train  of  reflection  necessary  to  cany  the  conviction  that 
those  who  were  not  the  peojile  of  Jehovah  liad  no 
divine  helper  at  all.  It  was  not  every  one  Avho  could 
rise  with  the  prophet  Amos  to  the  thought  that  it  was 
Jehovah's  supreme  providence  which  liad  determined 
the  migrations  of  all  nations  just  as  mucli  as  of  Israel 
(Amos  ix.  7).  It  is  not  therefore  surprising  that  the 
mass  of  the  people  long  after  the  time  of  David  held  the 
faith  of  Jehovah  in  a  way  that  left  it  open  to  them  to 
concede  a  certain  reality  to  the  gods  of  other  nations. 
The  ordinary  unenlightened  Israelite  thought  that 
Jehovah  was  stronger  than  Chemosh,  while  the  Moabite, 
as  we  see  from  the  stone  of  Mesha,  thought  that  Che- 
mosh was  stronger  than  Jehovah ;  but,  apart  from  this 
difference,  the  two  had  a  great  many  religious  ideas  in 
common,  and,  but  for  the  continued  word  of  revelation 
in  the  mouths  of  the  prophets,  Israel's  religion  might 
very  well  have  permanently  remained  on  this  level,  and 
so  have  perished  with  the  fall  of  the  Hebrew  state. 

We  see,  then,  that  it  was  not  the  idea  of  the  theocracy 
that  gave  to  the  religion  of  Israel  its  unique  character. 
It  is  well  to  observe  that  the  same  thing  may  be  said 
of  the  sacred  ordinances  which  are  so  often  thought  of 
as  having  been  from  the  first  what  they  undoubtedly 
became  after  the  time  of  Ezra,  a  permanent  wall  of 
separation  between  Israel  and  the  Gentiles.  To  discuss 
this  subject  in  detail  it  would  be  necessary  to  trace  the 
history  of  the  ritual  laws  of  the  Pentateuch.  This  I 
have  done,  to  a  certain  extent,  in  a  previous  course  of 


5G  THE  ORDINANCES  lect.  ii. 

lectures,  and  I  shall  not  repeat  what  I  then  said.  But 
in  general  it  must  be  observed  that  to  the  ordinary 
Israelite  the  most  prominent  of  the  sacred  observances 
previous  to  the  exile  must  have  seemed  rather  to  con- 
nect his  worship  with  that  of  the  surrounding  nations 
than  to  separate  the  two.  Israel,  like  the  other  nations, 
worshipped  Jehovah  at  certain  fixed  sanctuaries,  where 
He  was  held  to  meet  with  His  people  face  to  face.  The 
method  of  worship  was  by  altar  gifts,  expressive  of 
homage  for  the  good  things  of  His  bestowal,  and  the 
chief  occasions  of  such  worship  Avere  the  agricultural 
feasts,  just  as  among  the  Canaanites.^  The  details  of 
the  ceremoiiial  observed  were  closely  parallel  to  those 
still  to  be  read  on  Phoenician  monuments.  Even  the 
technical  terms  connected  with  sacrifice  were  in  OTeat 
part  identical  The  vow  {nSdcr),  the  whole  burnt -offer- 
ing (kdl'tl),  the  thank-offering  (sJidem),  the  meat-offering 
{mmliath),  and  a  variety  of  other  details  appear  on  the 
tablet  of  Marseilles  and  similar  Phoenician  documents 
under  their  familiar  Old  Testament  names,  showing  that 
the  Hebrew  ritual  was  not  a  thing  by  itself,  but  had  a 
common  foundation  v/ith  that  observed  by  their  neigh- 
bours.^ And  no  hesitation  was  felt  in  actually  copy- 
ing foreign  models.  When  Ahaz  took  the  pattern  of 
a  new  altar  from  Damascus,  he  simply  followed  the 
precedent  set  by  Solomon  in  the  building  of  the  temple. 
The  court  with  its  brazen  altar  and  lofty  columns 
(Jachin  and  Boaz),  the  portico  (2  Kings  xxiii.  11 — not 
suburbs,  as  the  Authorised  Version  has  it),  the  orna- 


LECT.  II.  OF  WORSHIP.  57 

ments,  cliasecl  or  embossed  in  gold,  the  symbolic  palm- 
trees,  and  so  forth,  are  all  described  or  figured  on 
Phoenician  inscriptions  and  coins.^ 

Again  the  approach  of  the  worshipper  to  his  God  in 
sacrifice  and  offering  demands,  as  its  necessary  comple- 
ment, a  means  by  which  the  response  of  the  deity  can 
be  conveyed  to  His  people.  Among  the  Hebrews  the 
answer  of  Jehovah  to  the  people's  supplications  was 
given  by  the  priestly  lot  and  the  prophetic  word.  But 
here  again  the  vast  difference  between  the  revelation 
of  Jehovah  and  the  oracles  of  the  nations  lies  in  what 
Jehovah  had  to  say,  rather  than  in  the  external  manner 
of  saying  it.  The  holy  lot  Ls  of  constant  occurrence  in 
ancient  religions  ;  ^  there  were  prophets  of  Baal  as  well 
as  prophets  of  Jehovah ;  and  the  official  prophets,  con- 
nected with  the  sanctuary,  were,  according  to  the  testi- 
mony of  Jeremiah  and  Micah,  often  not  distinguishable 
from  sorcerers — a  fact  quite  inexplicable  if  there  had 
been  a  broad  acknowledsred  difference  in  externals 
between  their  functions  and  those  of  the  prophets  of  the 
heathen.  In  point  of  fact,  we  find  Saul  and  his  servant 
going  to  Samuel  with  a  trifling  present,  just  as  in  other 
early  nations. 

In  every  way,  then,  the  attempt  to  reduce  the 
difference  between  the  early  religion  of  the  Hebrews 
and  that  of  other  nations  to  broad  tangible  peculiarities 
that  can  be  grasped  with  the  hand  breaks  down.  It 
was  Jehovah  Himself  who  was  different  from  Chemosli, 
Moloch,  or  Melkarth  ;  and  to  those  who  did  not  knoio 
4 


58  THE  KNOWLEDGE  lect.  ii. 


Jeliovah,  to  use  the  expressive  prophetic  phrase,  there 
was  no  insurmountable  barrier  between  His  wor- 
ship and  heathenism.  Even  the  current  ideas  of  the 
Hebrews  about  unseen  things  were  mainly  the  common 
stock  of  the  Semitic  peoples,  and  nothing  is  more  cer- 
tain than  that  neither  Moses  nor  Samuel  gave  Israel 
any  new  system  of  metaphysical  theology.  In  matters 
of  thought  as  well  as  of  practice,  the  new  revelation  of 
Jehovah's  power  and  love,  given  through  Moses,  or 
rather  given  in  actual  saving  deeds  of  Jehovah  which 
Moses  taught  the  people  to  understand,  involved  no 
sudden  and  absolute  break  with  the  past,  or  with  the 
traditions  of  the  past  common  to  Israel  with  kindred 
nations.  Its  epoch-making  importance  lay  in  quite 
another  direction  —  in  the  introduction  into  Israel's 
historical  life  of  a  new  personal  factor — of  Jehovah 
Himself  as  the  God  of  Israel's  salvation.  Jehovah,  as 
the  prophet  Hosea  puts  it,  taught  Israel  to  walk,  holding 
him  by  the  arms  as  a  parent  holds  a  little  child ;  but 
the  divine  guidance  fitly  characterised  in  these  words 
is  something  very  different  from  such  a  course  of  lec- 
tures on  doGfmatics  as  is  often  thoucrht  of  as  the  sub- 
stance  of  Old  Testament  revelation.  Again  to  borrow 
the  language  of  Hosea,  Jehovah  drew  Israel  to  Him  by 
human  ties,  by  cords  of  love;  the  influence  of  His 
revelation  in  forming  the  religious  character  of  the 
nation  was  a  personal  influence,  the  influence  of  His 
gracious  and  holy  character.  It  was  from  this  personal 
experience  pf  Jehovah's  character,  read  in  the  actual 


LECT.  II.  OF  JEHOVAH.  59 

history  of  His  dealings  with  His  people,  that  the  great 
teachers  of  Israel  learned,  but  learned  by  slow  degrees, 
to  lay  down  general  propositions  about  divine  things. 
To  suppose  that  the  Old  Testament  history  began  with 
a  full  scheme  of  doctrine,  which  the  history  only  served 
to  illustrate  and  enforce,  is  to  invert  the  most  general 
law  of  God's  dealings  with  man,  whether  in  the  way  of 
nature  or  of  grace. 

Unless  we  keep  this  principle  clearly  before  our 
minds,  the  whole  history  of  the  divine  teaching  contained 
in  the  Old  Testament  will  be  involved  in  hopeless  con- 
fusion ;  and  therefore  it  will  not  be  amiss  to  devote  a 
few  sentences  to  show  in  detail  how  impossible  it  is  to 
place  the  original  peculiarity  of  Israel's  religion  in  any- 
thing of  the  nature  of  abstract  theological  doctrine.  For 
this  purpose  I  may  select  two  principal  points,  w^hich 
are  always  held  to  be  cardinal  features  in  a  spiritual 
theology,  the  doctrine  of  the  unity  and  absolute  spiritual 
being  of  God,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  future  state  and 
retribution  in  the  world  to  come.  No  question  has  been 
more  discussed  by  writers  on  the  Old  Testament  than 
the  monotheism  of  the  Hebrews.  Was  the  doctrine  of 
monotheism  an  inheritance  from  the  patriarchs  ?  or  was 
it  introduced  by  Moses  ?  or  did  it  come  to  the  front  for 
the  first  time  in  the  days  of  Elijah  ?  or  was  it,  in  fact, 
not  precisely  formulated  till  the  time  of  Jeremiah  ? 

That  these  questions  can  be  asked  and  seriously 
argued  by  scholarly  inquirers  is,  at  any  rate,  sufficient  proof 
that  the  older  parts  of  the  Bible  do  not  give  to  the  abstract 


60  HEBREW  lect.  ii. 

doctrine  of  monotlieism  the  importance  that  it  possesses 
to  our  minds.  To  the  early  Hebrews  the  question  which 
we  view  as  so  fundamental,  and  which  was,  in  fact,  felt 
to  be  fundamental  by  the  later  prophets,  seems  hardly 
to  have  presented  itself  at  all.  For  the  practical  pur- 
poses of  religion,  the  thesis  that  there  is  no  god  who  can 
compare  with  Jehovah  appeared  as  sufficient  as  the  more 
advanced  doctrine  that  there  is  no  god  except  Him. 
As  long  as  the  Israelites,  with  Jehovah  at  their  head, 
were  absorbed  in  the  conflict  for  freedom  against  other 
nations  and  their  gods,  there  was  no  practical  interest 
in  the  question  whether  the  foreign  deities  had  or  had 
not  metaphysical  existence.  The  practical  point  was 
that  Jehovah  proved  Himself  stronger  than  they  by 
giving  Israel  victory  over  their  worshippers.  And,  in 
fact,  it  required  a  process  of  abstract  thought,  not  at  all 
familiar  to  early  times,  to  deny  all  reality  to  deities 
which  in  many  cases  were  identified  with  actual  con- 
crete things,  with  the  sun,  for  example,  or  the  planets. 
Even  in  the  latest  stages  of  Biblical  thought  the  point  of 
view  which  strictly  identifies  the  heathen  gods  with  the 
idols  that  represented  them,  and  therefore  denies  to  them 
all  living  reality,  varies  with  another  point  of  view  which 
regards  them  as  evil  demons  (1  Cor.  viii.  4  seq^. ;  x.  20  seqX 
Nor  is  it  at  all  clear  that  in  the  earliest  times  the 
difference  between  Jehovah  and  other  gods  was  placed 
in  His  spiritual  nature.  The  Old  Testament  word 
which  we  translate  by  spirit  (rw"A)  is  the  common  word 
for  wind,  including  the  "  living- breath "  (n^^  of  life. 


MONOTHEISM.  Gl 


Gen.  vi.  17),  and  so  used  of  the  motions  of  life  and  the 
affections  of  the  soul.  JSTow,  observation  of  human  life 
taught  the  Hebrews  to  distinguish  between  man's  flesh, 
or  visible  and  tangible  frame,  and  the  subtile  breath  or 
spirit  which  animates  this  frame.  It  was  in  the  fleshy 
body  that  they  saw  the  difference  between  man  and 
God.  "  Hast  Thou  eyes  of  flesh,"  says  Job,  "  or  secst 
Thou  as  man  seeth  "  (Job  x.  4).  "  The  Egyptians  are 
men  and  not  God,  and  their  horses  flesh  and  not  spirit " 
(Isa.  xxxi.  3).  These  passages  are  the  clearest  expres- 
sions of  the  spirituality  of  the  godhead  which  the  Old 
Testament  contains,  and  you  observe  that  they  are  not 
directed  to  distinguish  between  the  true  God  and  false 
gods,  but  to  characterise  the  godhead  in  its  difference 
from  human  nature.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  divine  working, 
rather  than  the  divine  nature,  that  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures regard  as  spiritual — that  is,  as  possessing  a  subtile 
and  invisible  character,  comparable  with  the  mysterious 
movements  of  the  wind.  The  common  doctrine  of  the 
Old  Testament  is  not  that  God  is  spirit,  but  that  the 
spirit  of  Jehovah,  going  forth  from  Him,  works  in  the 
w^orld  and  among  men.  And  this  is  no  metaphysical 
doctrine ;  it  simply  expresses  that  difference  between 
divine  and  human  agency  which  must  be  recognised 
wherever  there  is  any  belief  in  God,  or  at  least  any 
belief  rising  above  the  grossest  fetichism.  That  the 
early  Israelites  possessed  no  metaphysical  doctrine  of 
the  spirituality  of  Jehovah,  conceived  as  an  existence  out 
of  all  relation  to  space  and  time,  is  plain  from  the  fact 


62  HEBREW  lect.  ii. 

that  the  Old  Testament  never  quite  stripped  off  the  idea 
that  Jehovah's  contact  with  earth  has  a  special  relation 
to  special  places — that  the  operations  of  His  sovereignty 
go  forth  from  Sinai,  or  from  Zion,  or  from  some  other 
earthly  sanctuary,  where  He  is  nearer  to  man  than  on 
unconsecrated  ground.  It  is  true  that  this  conception 
generally  takes  a  poetical  form,  and  did  not  to  the 
prophets  appear  irreconcilable  with  the  thought  that  it 
is  impossible  to  escape  from  Jehovah's  presence  (Amos 
ix.  1  sc^. ;  Ps.  cxxxix.  7),  that  heaven  and  the  heaven 
of  heavens  cannot  contain  Him  (1  Kings  viii.  27) ;  that 
He  sits  on  the  circle  of  the  earth,  and  its  inhabitants 
are  as  grasshoppers  (Isa.  xl.  22).  But  the  figures  of 
early  poetry  express  the  actual  thoughts  of  the  people 
who  use  them ;  and  there  can  be  no  question  that,  by 
the  ordinary  Israelite,  the  local  relation  of  Jehovah  to 
the  land  and  sanctuaries  of  Israel,  the  idea  of  His  march 
from  Sinai  in  the  thunderstorm  that  announces  His 
approach,  were  taken  with  a  degree  of  literality  that 
would  have  been  impossible  if  Moses  had  already 
given  to  the  people  a  metaphysical  conception  of  the 
divine  being.  As  for  the  common  notion  that  the  name 
Jehovah  expresses  the  idea  of  absolute  and  unconditioned 
existence,  that  is  a  mere  fiction  of  the  Alexandrian 
philosophy,  absurdly  inconsistent  with  the  whole  lan- 
guage of  the  Old  Testament,  and  refuted  even  by  the 
one  phrase  Jehovah  of  hosts — the  Jehovah  of  the  armies 
of  Israel.^*^  Even  the  principle  of  the  second  command- 
ment, that  Jehovah  is  not  to  be  worshipped  by  images, 


MONOTHEISM,  63 


whicli  is  often  appealed  to  as  containing  the  most  char- 
acteristic peculiarity  of  Mosaism,  cannot,  in  the  light  of 
history,  be  viewed  as  having  had  so  fundamental  a  place 
in  the  religion  of  early  Israel  The  state  worship  of 
the  golden  calves  led  to  no  quarrel  between  Elisha  and 
the  dynasty  of  Jehu  ;  and  this  one  fact  is  sufficient  to 
show  that,  even  in  a  time  of  notable  revival,  the  living 
power  of  the  religion  was  not  felt  to  lie  in  the  principle 
that  Jehovah  cannot  be  represented  by  images. 

It  was  as  a  living  personal  force,  not  as  a  meta- 
physical entity,  that  Jehovah  w^as  adored  by  Israel, 
and  so  a  living  faith  was  possible  in  spite  of  much 
vagueness  and  vacillation  upon  the  very  points  in  the 
conception  of  the  Godhead  which,  to  our  habit  of 
mind,  seem  most  centraL  In  truth,  metaphysical  specu- 
lation on  the  Godhead  as  eternal,  infinite,  and  the  like, 
is  not  peculiar  to  the  religion  of  revelation,  but  was 
carried  by  the  philosophers  of  the  Gentiles  much  further 
than  is  ever  attempted  in  the  Old  Testament. 

The  other  point  to  which  I  have  referred,  the  views 
of  the  Hebrews  as  to  the  state  after  death  and  future 
retribution,  may  be  disposed  of  more  briefly.  Apart 
from  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection,  of  which  nothing 
is  heard  tiU  the  later  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  the 
religion  of  the  Hebrews  has  to  do  with  this  life,  not 
with  a  life  to  come,  as,  indeed,  was  inevitable,  seeing  that 
the  religious  subject,  the  object  of  Jehovah's  love,  is,  in 
the  first  instance,  the  nation  as  a  whole,  individual 
Israelites  coming  into  relation  with  their  God  as  mem- 


61  SHEOL.  LECT.  II. 

bers  of  the  nation  sharing  in  His  dealings  with  Israel 
qiiCi  nation.  After  death  man  enters  the  shadowy  realm 
of  Sheol,  where  the  weak  and  j)ithless  shades  dwell 
together,  where  their  love,  their  hatred,  their  envy  are 
perislied,  v\diere  small  and  great  are  alike,  and  the  ser- 
vant is  free  from  his  master  (Eccles.  ix.  4  bcci.  ;  Job.  iii. 
1 3  scc[),  where  there  is  no  more  remembrance  of  God,  and 
none  can  praise  His  name  or  hope  for  His  truth  (Ps. 
vi.  5 ;  Isa.  xxxviii.  18).  There  is  nothing  in  these 
conceptions  which  partakes  of  the  character  of  revela- 
tion ;  they  are  just  the  same  ideas  as  are  found  among 
the  surrounding  nations.  The  very  name  of  shades 
(Rephaim)  is  common  to  the  Old  Testament  with  the 
Phoenicians ;  and,  v/hen  the  Sidonian  king  Eshmunazar 
engraved  on  his  sarcophagus  the  prayer  that  those  who 
disturbed  his  tomb  might  "  find  no  bed  among  the 
shades/'  he  nsed  the  same  imagery  and  even  the  same 
words  as  are  employed  in  the  books  of  Isaiah  and 
Ezekiel  in  describing  the  descent  into  Sheol  of  the  kings 
of  Babylon  and  Egypt  (Isa.  xiv.  9,  18  scq^. ;  Ezek.  xxxii. 
25).-^^  In  accordance  with  this  viev/  of  the  state  of  the 
dead,  the  Hebrew  doctrine  of  retribution  is  essentially 
a  doctrine  of  retribution  on  earth.  Death  is  itself  a 
final  judgment ;  for  it  removes  man  from  the  sphere 
where  Jehovah's  grace  and  judgment  are  knov/n.  Here, 
then,  even  more  clearly  than  in  the  other  case,  it  is 
plain  that  the  religion  of  the  Hebrews  does  not  rest  on 
a  philosophy  of  the  unseen  universe.  The  sphere  of 
religion  is  the  present  life,  and  the  truths  of  religion 


i.ECT.  II.  RETRIBUTION.  65 

are  the  truths  of  an  everyday  experience  in  which  to 
Hebrew  faith  Jehovah  is  as  living  and  personal  an  actor 
as  men  are.  His  agency  in  Israel  is  too  real  to  invite 
to  abstract  speculation  ;  all  interest  turns,  not  on  what 
Jehovah  is  in  Himself,  or  what  He  does  beyond  tlie 
sphere  of  the  present  national  life,  but  on  His  present 
doings  in  the  midst  of  His  people,  and  the  personal 
character  and  dispositions  which  these  doings  reveal 

JSTow,  to  all  early  nations  religion  is  an  intensely 
real  thing.  The  primitive  mind  does  not  occupy  itself 
with  things  of  no  practical  importance,  and  it  is  only  in 
tlie  later  stages  of  society  that  we  meet  with  traditional 
beliefs  nominally  accepted  by  every  one,  but  practically 
regarded  by  none,  or  with  theological  speculations 
which  have  an  interest  to  the  curious  but  are  not  felt 
to  have  a  direct  bearing  on  the  concerns  of  life.  In  the 
earliest  stages  of  the  religion  of  any  nation  w^e  may 
take  it  for  granted  that  nothing  is  believed  or  practised 
which  is  not  felt  to  be  of  vital  importance  for  the 
nation's  wellbeing.  There  is  no  remissness,  therefore,  in 
religious  duty,  no  slackness  in  the  performance  of  sacred 
rites.  This  principle  holds  good  for  ancient  Israel  as 
well  as  for  other  ancient  nations.  The  prophets  them- 
selves, amidst  all  their  complaints  against  the  people's 
backsliding,  bear  wutness  that  their  countrymen  were 
assiduous  in  their  religious  service,  and  neglected  nothing 
which  they  deemed  necessary  to  make  sure  of  Jehovah's 
help  in  every  need.  The  Israelites,  in  fact,  had  not 
readied  the  stage  at  which  men  begin  to  be  indifferent 


66  JEHOVAH  AND  lect.  ii. 

about  religion,  and  if  Jeliovah  had  been  such  a  god  as 
Baal  or  Chemosh,  content  witli  such  service  as  they 
exacted  from  their  worshippers,  there  would  have  been 
no  ground  to  complain  of  their  fidelity  to  His  name  or 
their  zeal  for  His  cause. 

But  here  we  come  back  to  the  real  difference 
between  the  religion  of  Jehovah  and  the  religion  of 
the  nations,  which,  as  we  have  just  seen,  cannot  be 
sought  in  the  external  forms  of  the  Old  Testament 
worship,  or  in  a  system  of  abstract  monotheistic  theo- 
logy. That  difference  lies  in  the  personal  character  of 
Jehovah,  and  in  the  relations  corresponding  to  His 
character  which  He  seeks  to  maintain  with  His  people. 
Properly  speaking,  the  heathen  deities  have  no  personal 
character,  and  no  personal  relations  to  their  wor- 
shippers. They  were,  indeed,  conceived  as  a  kind  of 
persons,  as  capable  of  anger  and  of  pleasure,  as  hunger- 
ing and  fed  by  sacrifices,  as  showing  affection  to  their 
worshippers,  who  were  often  looked  on  as  their  sons  and 
daughters,  and  so  forth.  But  character  in  the  sense  of 
a  fixed  and  independent  habit  of  will  was  not  theirs. 
The  attributes  ascribed  to  them  were  a  mere  reflex  of 
the  attributes  of  their  worshippers,  and  what  character 
they  had  was  nothing  else  than  a  personification  of  the 
character  of  the  nation  that  acknowledged  their  lord- 
ship. Heathen  religions  were  by  no  means  without 
moral  value  in  giving  fixed  expression  to  national  cha- 
racter, and  adding  a  sacred  sanction  to  the  highest 
national    conception  of  right   and  wrong.      But   they 


LECT.  II.  OTHER  GODS.  67 

had  no  effect  in  developing  character.  The  god  always 
remained  on  the  same  ethical  level  with  his  people. 
His  virtues  were  their  virtues,  and  their  imperfections 
were  his  also.  The  god  and  the  people  therefore  never 
parted  company.  It  was  not  difQcult  to  worship  and 
serve  him  aright,  for  he  ashed  no  more  than  popular 
sentiment  approved.  The  heathen  nations,  says  Jere- 
miah, never  gave  up  their  gods,  which  yet  are  no  gods 
(Jer.  ii.  11),  In  point  of  fact,  there  was  no  motive  to 
give  up  a  religion  wliich  had  no  higher  moral  standard 
and  no  higher  aims  than  those  of  the  worshippers  them- 
selves. The  god  and  the  people  kept  together  because 
they  formed  a  natural  unity,  because  the  deity  had  no 
independent  will,  and  at  most  was  conceived  as  being 
sometimes  temporarily  estranged  from  his  people  for 
reasons  not  clearly  distinguishable  from  the  caprice  of 
an  Eastern  despot. 

Not  so  Jehovah.  He  approved  Himself  a  true  God 
by  showing  throughout  the  history  of  Israel  that  He 
had  a  will  and  purpose  of  His  own — a  purpose  rising 
above  the  current  ideas  of  His  worshippers,  and  a  will 
directed  with  steady  consistency  to  a  moral  aim. 
Jehovah  was  not  content  to  receive  such  service  as  it 
was  easy  and  natural  for  the  people  to  perform,  and  to 
give  them  such  felicity  as  they  themselves  desired. 
All  His  dealings  with  Israel  were  directed  to  lead  the 
people  on  to  higher  things  than  their  natural  character 
inclined  towards.  To  know  Jehovah  and  to  serve  Him 
aright  involved  a  moral  effort — a  frequent  sacrifice  of 


68  JEHOVAH'S  CONTROVERSY  lect.  ii. 

natural  inclination.  It  was  an  easy  thing  to  acknow- 
ledge the  Divine  King  of  Israel  in  the  day  of  battle 
wlien  He  led  His  armies  on  to  victory ;  and  it  is  not 
difficult  to  understand  that  in  the  prosperous  days  of 
David  the  Hebrews  could  rejoice  before  Jehovah,  and 
find  nothing  burdensome  in  His  service.  But  very 
different  experiences  awaited  the  nation  in  the  ages  that 
followed — when  Israel  was  divided  against  itself,  when 
its  rulers  were  drawn  into  the  larger  stream  of  politics 
by  the  forward  movement  of  the  great  empire  on  the 
Tigris,  and  when  the  old  social  system,  based  on  peasant 
proprietorship,  began  to  break  up  and  left  a  dangerous 
gulf  between  the  rich  nobles  and  the  landless  or  im- 
poverished classes. 

Every  change  in  the  old  national  life,  every  dis- 
order in  society  or  in  the  state,  opened  a  new  religious 
problem — a  new  question,  that  is,  as  to  the  reason  why 
Jehovah  suffered  such  evils  to  befall  His  people.  To 
the  unthinking  masses  these  things  were  only  a  proof 
that  Jehovah  was  temporarily  estranged,  and  did  not 
lead,  them  to  doubt  that  He  could  be  won  back  to  them 
by  greater  zeal  in  acts  of  external  worship  which  might 
with  advantage  be  made  more  effective  and  splendid 
by  taking  hints  from  their  heathen  neighbours.  But 
though  the  sacrifices  w^ere  redoubled  and  the  feasts 
thronged  with  eager  worshippers,  all  this  brought  no 
help  to  Israel.  The  nation  sank  continually  lower,  and 
Jehovah  still  stood  afar  off ;  to  the  common  judgment 
He  seemed  to  have  forsaken  His  land. 


LECT.  II.  WITH  HIS  PEOPLE.  69 

Under  such  trials  a  heathen  religion  Avhich  was 
capable  of  no  higher  hopes  than  were  actually  enter- 
tained by  the  mass  of  the  Hebrews  would  have  declined 
and  perished  with  the  fall  of  the  nation.  But  Jehovah 
proved  Himself  a  true  God  by  vindicating  His 
sovereignty  in  the  very  events  that  proved  fatal  to  the 
gods  of  the  Gentiles.  Amidst  the  sceptical  politics  of 
the  nobles  and  the  thoughtless  superstition  of  the 
masses  He  was  never  without  a  remnant  that  read  the 
facts  of  history  in  another  light,  and  saw  in  them  the 
proof,  not  that  Jehovah  was  powerless  or  indifferent,  but 
that  He  was  engaged  in  a  great  controversy  with  His 
people,  a  controversy  that  had  moral  issues  unseen  to 
those  who  knew  not  Jehovah  and  neglected  the  only 
service  in  which  He  was  well  pleased.  When  Jehovah 
seemed  furthest  off  He  was  in  truth  nearest  to  Israel, 
and  the  reverses  that  seemed  to  prove  Him  to  have 
forsaken  His  land  were  really  the  strokes  of  His  hand. 
He  desired  mercy  and  not  sacrifice,  obedience  rather 
than  the  fat  of  lambs.  While  these  thincjs  were  wan  tin  ij; 
His  very  love  to  Israel  could  only  show  itself  in  ever- 
repeated  chastisement,  till  the  sinners  were  consumed 
out  of  His  land  and  His  holy  will  established  itself  in 
the  hearts  of  a  regenerate  people.  Jehovah's  purpose 
was  supreme  over  all,  and  it  must  prove  itself  supreme 
in  Israel  though  the  Hebrew  state  perished  in  hopeless 
conflict  with  it.  He  who  redeemed  His  nation  from 
Egypt  could  redeem  it  from  a  new  captivity;  and,  if 
Israel  would  not  learn  to  know  Jehovah  in  the  good 


70  JEHOVAH  THE  GOD  lect.  ii. 

land  of  Canaan,  it  must  once  more  pass  through  the 
desert  and  enter  the  door  of  hope  through  the  valley  of 
tribulation.  Such  is  the  prophetic  picture  of  the  con- 
troversy of  Jehovah  with  His  people,  the  great  issues 
of  which  are  unfolded  with  increasing  clearness  in  the 
successive  prophetic  books. 

I  am  afraid  that  this  long  discussion  has  proved  a 
somewhat  severe  tax  on  your  attention,  but  the  results 
to  which  it  has  led  us  are  of  the  first  importance,  and 
will  help  us  through  all  our  subsequent  course.  Let 
me  repeat  them  very  briefly.  The  primary  difference 
between  the  religion  of  Israel  and  that  of  the  surround- 
ing nations  does  not  lie  in  the  idea  of  a  theocracy,  or  in 
a  philosophy  of  the  invisible  world,  or  in  the  external 
forms  of  religious  service,  but  in  a  personal  difference 
between  Jehovah  and  other  gods.  That  difference, 
again,  is  not  of  a  metaphysical  but  of  a  directly  practical 
nature  ;  it  was  not  defined  once  for  all  in  a  theological 
dogma,  but  made  itself  felt  in  the  attitude  which 
Jehovah  actually  took  up  towards  Israel  in  those  his- 
torical dealings  with  His  nation  to  which  the  word  of 
the  prophets  supplied  a  commentary.  Everything  that 
befell  Isra.el  was  interpreted  by  the  prophets  as  a  work 
of  Jehovah's  hand,  displaying  His  character  and  will — 
not  an  arbitrary  character  or  a  changeable  will,  but  a 
fixed  and  consistent  holy  purpose,  which  has  Israel  for 
its  object  and  seeks  the  true  felicity  of  the  nation,  but 
at  the  same  time  is  absolutely  sovereign  over  Israel, 
and  will  not  give  way  to  Israel's  desires  or  adapt  itself 


LECT.  II.  OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS.  71 

to  Israel's  convenience.  Xo  other  religion  can  sliow 
anything  parallel  to  this.  The  gods  of  the  nations  are 
always  conceived  either  as  arbitrary  and  changeful,  or 
as  themselves  subordinate  to  blind  fate,  or  as  essenti- 
ally capable  of  being  bent  into  sympathy  with  what- 
ever is  for  the  time  being  the  chief  desire  of  their 
worshippers,  or,  in  some  more  sx)eculative  forms  of 
faith,  introduced  Avhen  these  simpler  conceptions  broke 
down,  as  escaping  these  limitations  only  by  being  raised 
to  entire  unconcern  in  the  petty  affairs  of  man.  In 
Israel  alone  does  Jehovah  appear  as  a  God  near  to  man, 
and  yet  maintaining  an  absolute  sovereignty  of  will,  a 
consistent  independence  of  character.  And  the  advance 
of  the  Old  Testament  religion  is  essentially  identified 
with  an  increasing  clearness  of  perception  of  the  things 
which  this  character  of  the  Deity  involves.  The  name 
of  Jehovah  becomes  more  and  more  full  of  meaning  as 
faith  in  His  sovereignty  and  self-consistency  is  put  to 
successive  tests  in  the  constantly  changing  problems 
presented  by  the  events  of  history. 

Now,  when  we  speak  of  Jehovah  as  displaying  a 
consistent  character  in  His  sovereignty  over  Israel,  we 
necessarily  imply  that  Israel's  religion  is  a  moral 
relij^rion,  that  Jehovah  is  a  God  of  righteousness,  whose 
dealings  with  His  people  follow  an  ethical  standard. 
The  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  among  the  Hebrews  are 
forensic  ideas  ;  that  is,  the  Hebrew  always  thinks  of  the 
right  and  the  wrong  as  if  they  were  to  be  settled  before 
a  judge.     Piigliteousness  is  to  the  Hebrew  not  so  much 


72  RELIGION  AND 


a  moral  quality  as  a  legal  status.  The  ^Yor(l  "  righteous  " 
{^addil-)  means  simply  "  in  the  right,"  and  the  word 
"wicked"  (rdshcC)  means  "in  the  Avrong."  "I  have 
sinned  this  time/'  says  Pharaoh,  "Jehovah  is  in  the  right 
(A.V.  righteous),  and  I  and  my  people  are  in  the  wrong 
(A.V.  wicked),"  Exod.  ix.  27.  Jehovah  is  always  in  the 
right,  for  He  is  not  only  sovereign  but  self-consistent. 
Pie  is  the  fountain  of  righteousness,  for  from  the  days 
of  Moses  He  is  the  judge  as  well  as  the  captain  of  His 
people,  giving  forth  law  and  sentence  from  His  sanctu- 
ary. In  primitive  society  the  functions  of  judge  and 
lawgiver  are  not  separated,  and  reverence  for  law  has 
its  basis  in  personal  respect  for  the  judge.  So  the  just 
consistent  will  of  Jehovah  is  the  laAv  of  Israel,  and  it  is 
a  law  which  as  King  of  Israel  He  Himself  is  continu- 
ally administering.^^ 

Now,  in  every  ancient  nation,  morality  and  law 
(including  in  this  word  traditional  binding  custom)  are 
identical,  and  in  every  nation  law  and  custom  are  a 
part  of  religion,  and  have  a  sacred  authority.  But  in 
no  other  nation  does  this  conception  attain  the  precision 
and  practical  force  which  it  has  in  the  Old  Testament, 
because  the  gods  themselves,  the  guardians  of  law, 
do  not  possess  a  sharply-defined  consistency  of  charac- 
ter such  as  Jehovah  possesses.  The  heathen  gods  are 
guardians  of  law,  but  they  are  something  else  at  the 
same  time;  they  are  not  wholly  intent  on  righteous- 
ness, and  righteousness  is  not  the  only  path  to  their 
favour,  wdiich  sometimes  depends  on  accidental  partial- 


MORALITY.  73 


ities,  or  may  be  conciliated  by  acts  of  worship  tliat  have 
nothing  to  do  with  morality.  And  here  be  it  observed 
that  the  fundamental  superiority  of  the  Hebre\V  religion 
does  not  lie  in  the  particular  system  of  social  morality 
tliat  it  enforces,  but  in  the  more  absolute  and  self-con- 
sistent righteousness  of  the  Divine  Judge.  The  abstract 
principles  of  morality — that  is,  the  acknowledged  laws 
of  social  order — are  pretty  much  the  same  in  all  parts 
of  the  world  in  corresponding  stages  of  social  develop- 
ment. Heathen  nations  at  the  same  general  stage  of 
society  with  the  Hebrews  will  be  found  to  acknowledge 
all  the  duties  of  man  to  man  laid  down  in  the  deca- 
logue ;  and  on  the  other  hand  there  are  niany  things  in 
the  social  order  of  the  Hebrews,  such  as  polygamy, 
blood  revenge,  slavery,  the  treatment  of  enemies,  which 
do  not  correspond  with  the  highest  ideal  morality,  but 
belong  to  an  imperfect  social  state,  or,  as  the  gospel  puts 
it,  were  tolerated  for  the  hardness  of  the  people's  hearts. 
But,  with  all  this,  the  religion  of  Jehovah  put  morality 
on  a  far  sounder  basis  than  any  other  religion  did, 
because  in  it  the  righteousness  of  Jehovah  as  a  God 
enforcing  the  known  laws  of  morality  was  conceived  as 
absolute,  and  as  showing  itself  absolute,  not  in  a  future 
state,  but  upon  earth.  I  do  not,  of  course,  mean  that 
this  high  view  of  Jehovah's  character  was  practically 
present  to  all  His  worshippers.  On  the  contrary,  a 
chief  complaint  of  the  prophets  is  that  it  was  not  so,  or, 
in  other  words,  that  Israel  did  not  know  Jehovah.  But 
the  higher  view  is  never  put  forth  by  the  prophets  as  a 


74  RELIGION  OF  lect.  ir. 

novelty ;  they  regard  it  as  the  very  foundation  of  the 
religion  of  Jehovah  from  the  days  of  Moses  downwards, 
and  the  people  never  venture  to  deny  that  they  are 
right.  In  truth  they  could  not  deny  it,  for  the  history 
of  the  first  creation  of  Israel,  which  was  the  funda- 
mental evidence  as  to  the  true  character  of  Jehovah's 
relations  to  His  people,  gave  no  room  for  such  mytho- 
logical conceptions  as  operate  in  the  heathen  religions 
to  make  a  just  conception  of  the  Godhead  impossible. 
Heathen  religions  can  never  conceive  of  their  gods  as 
perfectly  righteous,  because  they  have  a  natural  as  well 
as  a  moral  side,  a  ph3"sical  connection  with  their  wor- 
shippers, physical  instincts  and  passions,  and  so  forth. 
The  Old  Testament  brings  out  this  point  with  great 
force  of  sarcasm  when  Elijah  taunts  the  prophets  of 
Baal,  and  suggests  that  their  god  may  be  asleep,  or  on  a 
journey,  or  otherwise  busied  with  some  human  avoca- 
tion. In  fact,  all  this  was  perfectly  consistent  with  the 
nature  of  Baal.  But  the  Hebrews  knew  Jehovah  solely 
as  the  Kins:  and  Jud^^e  of  Israel.  He  w^as  this,  and  this 
alone  ;  and  therefore  there  was  no  ground  to  ascribe  to 
Him  less  than  absolute  sovereignty  and  absolute  right- 
eousness. If  the  masses  lost  sight  of  those  great 
qualities,  and  assimilated  His  nature  to  that  of  the 
Cauaanite  deities,  the  prophets  were  justified  in  remind- 
ing them  that  Jehovah  was  Israel's  God  before  they 
knew  the  Baalim,  and  that  He  had  then  show^ed  Him- 
self a  God  far  different  from  these. 

But  religion  cannot  live  on  the  mere  memory  of  the 


LECT.  II.  THE  PROPHETS.  75 

j)ast,  and  the  faith  of  Jehovah  had  to  assert  itself  as  the 
true  faith  of  Israel  by  realising  a  present  God  who  still 
worked  in  the  midst  of  the  nation  as  He  had  worked  of 
old.  No  nation  can  long  cleave  to  a  God  whose  pre- 
sence and  power  are  not  actually  with  them  in  their 
daily  life.  If  Jehovah  was  Israel's  God,  He  must  manifest 
Himself  as  still  the  King  and  the  Judge  of  His  people, 
and  these  names  must  acquire  more  and  more  full 
significance  through  the  actual  experience  of  deeds  of 
sovereignty  and  righteousness.  Without  such  deeds  no 
memory  of  the  days  of  Moses  could  long  have  saved 
the  God  of  the  Hebrews  from  sinking  to  the  level  of  the 
gods  of  the  nations,  and  we  have  now  to  see  that  such 
deeds  were  not  wanting,  and  not  without  fruit  for  the 
progress  of  the  Old  Testament  faith. 

Before  the  time  of  Amos,  the  father  of  written 
prophecy,  the  record  of  Israel's  religious  life  is  too 
fragmentary  to  allow  us  to  follow  it  in  detail.  Of  the 
history  of  religion  between  Solomon  and  Ahab  we  know 
next  to  nothing.  In  the  greater  Israel  of  the  North, 
which  in  these  ages  was  the  chief  seat  of  national  life, 
a  constant  succession  of  revolutions  and  civil  wars 
obscures  all  details  of  internal  history.  The  accession 
of  the  powerful  dynasty  of  Omri,  which  regained  in 
successful  war  a  good  part  of  the  conquests  of  David — 
it  was  Omri,  as  we  know,  that  reduced  Moab  to  the 
tributary  condition  spoken  of  in  2  Kings  iii.  4^^ — restored 
the  northern  kingdom  to  fresli  vigour ;  and  it  is  character- 
istic of  the  close  union  between  national  life  and  the 


76  THE  HOUSE  OF  OMRL  lect.  ii. 

religion  of  Jeliovali  which  was  involved  in  the  very 
princi]Dles  of  the  Hebrew  commonwealth  that  the 
political  revival  was  the  prelnde  to  a  great  religious 
movement.  We  know  from  the  stone  of  Mesha  that  the 
war  of  Israel  with  Moab  appeared  to  the  combatants  as 
a  war  of  Jehovah  with  Chemosh.  The  victory,  there- 
fore, could  not  fail  to  give  a  fresh  impulse  to  tlie 
national  faith  of  the  Hebrews.  ISTow  Omri,  who  imitated 
the  conquests  of  David,  followed  also  the  Davidic 
policy  of  close  union  with  Tyre,  so  obviously  advan- 
tacjeous  to  the  material  interests  of  a  nation  which  was 
not  itself  commercial,  and  could  find  no  market  for  its 
agricultural  produce  except  in  the  Phoenician  ports. 
The  marriage  of  Ahab  with  a  Tyrian  princess  was  also 
a  direct  imitation  of  the  policy  of  Solomon's  marriages  ; 
and  in  building  and  endowing  a  temple  of  Baal  for  his 
wife  Ahab  did  no  more  than  Solomon  had  done  without 
exciting  much  opposition  on  the  part  of  his  people. 
But  now  there  were  men  in  Israel  to  whom  every  act 
of  homage  to  Baal  appeared  an  act  of  disloyalty  to 
Jehovah,  and  Elijah  openly  raised  the  question  whether 
Jehovah  or  Baal  was  God.  There  was  no  room  for  two 
gods  in  the  land. 

As  Ahab  had  no  intention  of  giving  up  the  worship 
of  Jehovah  when  he  gratified  Jezebel  by  establishing  a 
service  of  Baal,  we  may  be  sure  that  to  him  the  conflict 
with  Elijah  did  not  j)resent  itself  as  a  conflict  between 
Jehovah  and  Baal.  Hitherto  the  enemies  of  Jehovah 
had  been  the  gods  of  hostile  nations,  while  tiie  Tyrian 


LECT.  II.  AIIAB  AND  ELIJAH.  77 

Baal  was  tlie  god  of  a  friendly  state.  To  the  king,  as 
to  many  other  persecutors  since  his  day,  the  whole 
opposition  of  Elijah  seems  to  have  taken  a  political 
aspect.  The  imprisonment  of  Micaiah  shows  that  he 
was  little  inclined  to  brook  any  religious  interference 
with  the  councils  of  state,  and  the  prophetic  opposition 
to  Jezebel  and  her  Baal  worship  was  extremely  em- 
barrassing to  his  political  plans,  in  which  the  alliance 
with  Tyre  was  obviously  a  very  important  factor.  On 
his  part,  therefore,  the  severe  measures  taken  against  the 
prophets  and  their  party  simply  expressed  a  determina- 
tion to  be  absolute  master  in  his  own  land.  The  pre- 
vious history  of  the  northern  tribes  proves  that  a  strong 
central  authority  was  not  at  all  popular  with  the  nation. 
Ancestral  customs  and  privileges  were  obstinately  main- 
tained against  the  royal  will,  as  we  see  in  the  case  of 
N'aboth ;  and  the  same  case  shows  that  the  Tyrian  in- 
fluence encouraged  the  king  to  deal  with  this  obstinacy 
in  a  very  high-handed  way.  Elijah  did  not  at  first  find 
any  sustained  popular  support,  but  no  doubt  as  the 
struggle  went  on,  and  especially  after  the  judicial 
murder  of  ISTaboth  sent  a  thrill  of  horror  through  the 
land,  it  began  to  be  felt  that  he  was  pleading  the  cause 
of  the  ancient  freedoms  of  Israel  against  a  personal 
despotism  ;  and  so  we  can  understand  the  ultimate 
success  of  the  party  of  opposition  in  the  revolution  of 
Jehu,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  only  a  small  fraction  of 
the  nation  saw  the  religious  issues  at  stake  so  clearly 
as  Elijah  did.     From  the  point  of  view  of  national 


78  ELIJAH  AND  lect.  ii. 

politics  the  fall  of  the  house  of  Ahab  was  a  step  in  the 
downfall  of  Israel.  The  dynasty  of  Jehu  w^as  not  nearly 
so  strong  as  the  house  of  Omri ;  it  had  little  fortune 
in  the  Syrian  wars  till  Damascus  was  weakened  by  the 
progress  of  Assyria,  and  Hosea,  writing  in  the  last  days 
of  the  dynasty,  certainly  did  not  judge  amiss  when  he 
numbered  the  bloodshed  of  Jezreel  among  the  fatal  sins 
of  the  people,  a  factor  in  the  progress  of  that  anarchy 
which  made  a  sound  national  life  impossible  (Hosea  i.  4  ; 
vii.  V),  In  this  respect  the  work  of  Elijah  foreshadows 
that  of  the  prophets  of  Judah,  who  in  like  manner  had 
no  small  part  in  breaking  up  the  political  life  of  the 
kingdom.  The  prophets  were  never  patriots  of  the 
common  stamp,  to  whom  national  interests  stand  higher 
than  the  absolute  claims  of  religion  and  morality. 

Had  Elijah  been  merely  a  patriot,  to  whom  the  state 
stood  above  every  other  consideration,  he  would  have 
condoned  the  faults  of  a  king  who  did  so  much  for  the 
greatness  of  his  nation  ;  but  the  things  for  which  Elijah 
contended  were  of  far  more  worth  than  the  national 
existence  of  Israel,  and  it  is  a  higher  wisdom  than  that 
of  patriotism  which  insists  that  divine  truth  and  civil 
righteousness  are  more  than  all  the  counsels  of  state- 
craft. Judged  from  a  mere  political  point  of  view 
Elijah's  work  had  no  other  result  than  to  open  a  w^ay 
for  the  bloody  and  unscrupulous  ambition  of  Jehu,  and 
lay  bare  the  frontiers  of  the  land  to  the  ravages  of  the 
ferocious  Hazael ;  but  with  him  the  religion  of  Jehovah 
had  already  reached  a  point  wdiere  it  could  no  longer  be 


LECT.  II.  THE  HOUSE  OF  AHAB.  79 

judged  by  a  merely  national  standard,  and  the  truths  of 
which  he  was  the  champion  were  not  the  less  true  be- 
cause the  issue  made  it  plain  that  the  cause  of  Jehovah 
could  not  triumph  without  destroying  the  old  Hebrew 
state.  Nay,  without  the  destruction  of  the  state  the 
religion  of  Israel  could  never  have  given  birth  to  a 
religion  for  all  mankind,  and  it  was  precisely  the  in- 
capacity of  Israel  to  carry  out  the  higher  truths  of 
religion  in  national  forms  which  brought  into  clearer 
and  clearer  prominence  those  things  in  the  faith  of 
Jehovah  which  are  independent  of  every  national  con- 
dition, and  make  Jehovah  the  God  not  of  Israel  alone 
but  of  all  the  earth.  This,  however,  is  to  anticipate 
what  will  come  out  more  clearly  as  we  proceed.  Let 
us  for  the  present  confine  our  attention  to  what  Elijah 
himself  directly  saw  and  taught.^* 

The  ruling  principle  in  Elijah's  life  was  his  con- 
suming jealousy  for  Jehovah  the  God  of  hosts  (1  Kings 
xix.  14)  ;  or,  to  put  the  idea  in  another  and  equally 
Biblical  form,  Jehovah  was  to  him  pre-eminently  a 
jealous  God,  who  could  endure  no  rival  in  His  land  or 
in  the  affections  of  His  people.  There  was  nothing 
novel  in  this  idea;  the  novelty  lay  in  the  practical 
application  which  gave  to  the  idea  a  force  and  depth 
which  it  had  never  shown  before.  To  us  it  seems 
obvious  that  Ahab  had  broken  the  first  commandment 
in  giving  Baal  a  place  in  his  land,  but  to  Ahab  and  the 
mass  of  his  contemporaries  the  thing  could  hardly  be 
so  clear.     There  are  controversies  enouojh  even  amonir 


80  THE  WORK 


modern  commentators  as  to  tlie  exact  force  of  the 
''  before  me "  of  the  first  commandment ;  and,  even  if 
we  are  to  suppose  that  practical  religious  questions  were 
expressly  referred  to  the  words  of  this  precept,  it  would 
not  have  been  difficult  to  interpret  them  in  a  sense  that 
meant  only  that  no  other  god  should  have  the  pre- 
eminence over  Israel's  Kingf.  But  no  doubt  these  thinos 
were  judged  of  less  by  the  letter  of  the  decalogue  than 
by  habitual  feeling  and  usage.  Hitherto  all  Israel's 
interest  in  Jehovah  had  had  practical  reference  to  His 
contests  with  the  gods  of  hostile  nations,  and  it  was  one 
thing  to  worship  deities  wdio  were  felt  to  be  Jehovah's 
rivals  and  foes,  and  quite  another  thing  to  allow  some 
recognition  to  the  deity  of  an  allied  race.  But  Elijah 
saw  deeper  into  the  true  character  of  the  God  of  Israel. 
Where  He  was  worshipped  no  other  god  could  be  ac- 
knowledged in  any  sense.  This  was  a  proposition  of 
tremendous  practical  issues.  It  really  involved  the 
political  isolation  of  the  nation,  for  as  things  then  stood 
it  was  impossible  to  have  friendship  and  alliance  with 
other  peoples  if  their  gods  were  proscribed  in  Israel's 
land.  It  is  not  strange  that  Ahab  as  a  politician  fought 
with  all  his  might  against  such  a  view  ;  for  it  contained 
more  than  the  germ  of  that  antacjonism  between  Israel 
and  all  the  rest  of  mankind  which  made  the  Jews 
appear  to  the  Ptoman  historian  as  the  enemies  of  tlie 
human  race,  and  brought  upon  them  an  unbroken  suc- 
cession of  political  misfortunes  and  the  ultimate  loss  of 
all  place  among  the  nations.     It  is  hard  to  say  how  far 


LECT.  II.  OF  ELIJAH.  81 

tlie  followers  of  Elijah  or  indeed  tlie  prophet  himself 
perceived  the  full  consequences  of  the  position  which 
he  took  up.  But  the  whole  history  of  Elijah  testifies 
to  the  profound  impression  which  he  made.  The  air  of 
unique  grandeur  that  surrounds  the  prophet  of  Gilead 
proves  how^  high  he  stood  above  the  common  level  of 
his  time.  It  is  Jehovah  and  Elijah  not  against  Ahab 
alone,  but  against  and  above  the  world. 

The  work  of  Elijah,  in  truth,  was  not  so  much  that 
of  a  great  teacher  as  of  a  great  hero.  He  did  not 
preach  any  new  doctrine  about  Jehovah,  but  at  a  criti- 
cal moment  he  saw  wdiat  loyalty  to  the  cause  of  Jehovah 
demanded,  and  of  that  cause  he  became  the  champion, 
not  by  mere  w^ords,  but  by  his  life.  The  recorded 
words  of  Elijah  are  but  few,  and  in  many  cases  have 
probably  been  handed  down  with  the  freedom  that 
ancient  historians  habitually  use  in  such  matters.  His 
importance  lies  in  his  personality.  He  stands  before 
us  as  the  representative  of  Jehovah's  personal  claims 
on  Israel.  The  w^ord  of  Jehovah  in  his  mouth  is  not 
a  word  of  doctrine,  but  of  kingly  authority,  and  to  him 
pre-eminently  applies  the  saying  of  Hosea  :  "  I  have 
hewed  them  by  the  prophets  ;  I  have  slain  them  by  the 
w^ord  of  My  mouth  :  and  My  judgments  were  as  the  light 
that  goeth  forth  "  (Hosea  vi.  5).^^ 

This  view  of  the  career  of  -Elijah,  which  is  that 
naturally  derived  from  the  Biblical  narrative,  is  pretty 
much  an  exact  inversion  of  the  common  representation 
of  the  function  of  the  prophets.     The  traditional  view 


82  THE  WORK  lect.  ii. 


which  we  have  from  the  Eabbins  makes  the  prophets 
mere  interpreters  of  the  Law,  and  places  the  originality 
of  their  work  entirely  in  their  predictions.  In  that 
case  Elijah  would  be  the  least  original  of  prophets, 
for  he  gave  no  Messianic  prediction.  But  in  reality 
Jehovah  did  not  first  give  a  complete  theoretical  know- 
ledge of  Himself  and  then  raise  up  prophets  to  enforce 
the  application  of  the  theoretical  scheme  in  particular 
circumstances.  That  would  not  have  required  a  pro- 
phet ;  it  would  have  been  no  more  than  is  still  done 
by  uninspired  preachers.  The  place  of  the  prophet  is 
in  a  religious  crisis  where  the  ordinary  interpretation 
of  acknowledged  principles  breaks  down,  where  it  is 
necessary  to  go  back,  not  to  received  doctrine,  but  to 
Jehovah  Himself.  The  word  of  Jehovah  through  the 
prophet  is  properly  a  declaration  of  what  Jehovah  as 
the  personal  King  of  Israel  commands  in  this  particular 
crisis,  and  it  is  spoken  with  autliority,  not  as  an  in- 
ference from  previous  revelation,  but  as  the  direct 
expression  of  the  character  and  will  of  a  personal  God, 
who  has  made  Himself  personally  audible  in  the  pro- 
phet's soul.  General  propositions  about  divine  things 
are  not  the  basis  but  the  outcome  of  such  personal 
knowledge  of  Jehovah,  just  as  in  ordinary  human  life 
a  general  view  of  a  man's  character  must  be  formed  by 
observation  of  his  attitude  and  action  in  a  variety  of 
special  circumstances.  Elijah's  whole  career,  and  not 
his  words  merely,  contained  a  revelation  of  Jehovah  to 
Israel — that  is,  made  them  feel  that  through  this  man 


LECT.  II.  OF  ELIJAH.  83 

Jehovah  asserted   Himself  as  a  living  God   in  their 
midst. 

We  had  occasion  to  observe  in  the  course  of  last 
Lecture  that  all  genuine  religious  belief  contains  a 
positive  element — an  element  learned  from  the  ex- 
perience of  former  generations.  And  so  it  will  be  found 
that  all  great  religious  reformations  have  their  roots  in 
the  past,  that  true  reformers  do  not  claim  to  be  heard 
on  the  ground  of  the  new  things  they  proclaim,  but 
rather  because  they  alone  give  due  weight  to  old  truths 
which  the  mass  of  their  contemporaries  cannot  formally 
deny,  but  practically  ignore.  And  they  do  so  with  jus- 
tice, for  all  genuine  religious  truth  is  personal  truth,  and 
personal  truth  has  always  a  range  far  transcending  the 
circumstances  in  which  it  was  originally  promulgated 
and  the  application  to  which  it  was  originally  confined. 
So  it  was  with  Elijah.  The  God  wdiom  he  declared  to 
Israel  was  the  God  of  Moses — the  same  God,  declaring 
His  character  and  will  in  application  to  new  circum- 
stances. Elijah  himself  is  a  figure  of  antique  simplicity. 
He  was  a  man  of  Gilead,  a  native  of  that  part  of  the 
land  of  Israel  which  had  still  most  affinity  with  the  old 
nomadic  life  of  the  age  of  Moses,  and  was  furthest  re- 
moved from  the  Tyrian  influences  to  which  Ahab  had 
yielded.  It  is  highly  characteristic  for  his  whole  stand- 
point that  in  the  greatest  danger  of  his  life,  when  the 
victory  of  Jehovah  on  Mount  Carmel  seemed  to  be  all 
in  vain,  he  retired  to  the  desert  of  Sinai,  to  the  ancient 
mountain  of  God.     It  was  the  God  of  the  Exodus  to 


84  THE  NAZARITES.  lect.  ii. 

whom  he  appealed,  the  ancient  King  of  Israel  in  the 
journeyings  through  the  wilderness.  In  this  respect 
Elijah  shows  his  kinship  to  the  Nazarites,  a  very 
curious  and  interesting  class  of  men,  who  first  appear 
in  the  time  of  the  Philistine  oppression,  and  who,  some 
generations  later,  are  mentioned  by  Amos  side  by  side 
with  the  prophets  (Amos  ii.  11,  12).  The  cultivation  of 
the  vine  is  one  of  the  most  marked  distinctions  between 
nomadic  and  sedentary  life.  Nomads  and  half-settled 
tribes  have  often  a  certain  amount  of  agricultural  know- 
ledge, raising  occasional  crops  of  corn,  or  at  all  events 
of  edible  herbs.  But  the  cultivation  of  the  vine  de- 
mands fixed  sedentary  habits,  and  all  Semitic  nomads 
view  wine-growing  and  wine-drinkiug  as  essentially 
foreign  to  their  traditional  mode  of  life.-^*^  Canaan,  on 
the  contrary,  is  pre-eminently  a  land  of  the  grape,  and 
the  Canaanite  worship  was  full  of  Dionysiac  elements. 
Wine  was  the  best  gift  of  the  Baalim,  and  wine-drinking 
was  prominent  in  their  luxurious  worship.  The  Nazarite 
vow  to  abstain  from  wine,  which  in  the  earliest  case, 
that  of  Samson,  appears  as  a  life-long  vow,  was  un- 
doubtedly a  religious  protest  against  Canaanite  civilisa- 
tion in  favour  of  the  simple  life  of  ancient  times.  This 
appears  most  clearly  in  the  case  of  the  Eechabites,  who 
had  received  from  their  father  Jonadab  the  double  pre- 
cept never  to  drink  wine,  and  never  to  give  up  their 
wandering  pastoral  life  for  a  residence  in  cities  (Jer. 
XXXV.).  AVe  have  no  evidence  that  Elijah  had  a  personal 
connection  with  the  Eechabites ;  but  Jonadab  was  a 


LECT.  11.  THE  PROPHETIC  GUILDS.  85 

prominent  partisan  of  Jehu,  and  went  wifcli  him  to  see 
his  zeal  for  Jehovah  when  he  put  an  end  to  Baal  and 
his  worshippers  (2  Kings  x.  15  scc[).  We  see,  therefore, 
that  one  element,  and  not  the  least  popular,  in  the  move- 
ment against  Baal  was  a  reaction  in  favour  of  the  primi- 
tive simplicity  of  Israel  in  the  days  before  it  came  into  con- 
tact with  Canaanite  civilisation  and  Canaanite  religion. 
Another  seat  of  the  influence  of  the  movement  was 
the  prophetic  guilds.  Elijah  himself,  so  far  as  we  can 
judge,  had  little  to  do  with  these  guilds  ;  but  his  suc- 
cessor Elisha,  who  had  the  chief  share  in  giving 
political  effect  to  his  ideas,  found  his  closest  followers 
among  the  "sons  of  the  prophets."  The  idea  of 
"  schools  of  the  prophets,"  which  we  generally  connect 
with  this  Biblical  phrase,  is  a  pure  invention  of  com- 
mentators. According  to  all  the  laws  of  Semitic 
speech  the  sons  of  the  prophets  were  not  disciples  of  a 
school,  but  members  of  a  guild  or  corporation,^"  living 
together  in  the  neighbourhood  of  ancient  sanctuaries, 
such  as  Gilgal  and  Bethel,  and  in  all  likelihood  closely 
connected  with  the  priests,  as  was  certainly  the  case  in 
Judah  down  to  the  extinction  of  the  state  (Jer.  xxix. 
26,  cf.  XX.  1,  2 ;  Lam.  ii.  20,  etc.).  The  prophets  of 
Jehovah  and  the  priests  of  Jehovah  were  presumably 
associated  much  as  were  the  prophets  and  priests  of 
Baal.  It  w^ould  be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that 
wherever  we  hear  of  prophets  or  sons  of  prophets — that 
is,  members  of  prophetic  guilds — we  are  to  think  of  men 
raised  as  high   above  their  contemporaries  as  Elijah, 


86  PROPHETS  {NEBIIM).  lect.  ii. 

Amos,  or  Isaiah.  The  later  prophets,  in  oiir  sense  of  the 
word,  were  in  constant  feud  with  the  common  prophets 
of  their  day,  whose  profession  was  a  trade,  and  whose 
oracles  they  condemn  as  mere  heathenish  divination  im- 
plying no  true  knowledge  of  Jehovah.  The  very  name 
and  idea  of  the  prophet  (nabi)  are  common  to  Israel 
with  its  heathen  neighbours,  as  appears,  not  only  from 
the  existence  of  prophets  of  Baal  in  connection  with 
Jezebel's  sanctuary,  but  from  the  fact  that  the  Assyrians 
had  a  god  Nebo,  whose  name  is  essentially  identical 
with  the  Hebrew  nabi,  and  who  figures  as  the  spokes- 
man of  the  gods,  the  counterpart  of  the  Greek  Hermes.^^ 
The  first  appearance  of  companies  of  prophets  is  in  the 
history  of  Samuel  and  Saul  (1  Sam.  x.  3,  10  seq^),  where 
they  are  found  engaged  in  the  worship  of  Jehovah 
under  circumstances  of  physical  excitement  closely 
parallel  to  what  is  still  seen  among  the  dervishes  of 
the  East,  and  occasionally  among  ourselves  in  times 
of  strong  religious  feeling.^^  Excitement  of  this  sort 
is  often  associated  with  genuine  religious  movements, 
especially  among  primitive  peoples.  Like  all  physical 
accompaniments  of  religious  conviction,  it  is  liable  to 
strange  excesses,  and  may  often  go  along  with  false 
beliefs  and  self- deluding  practices;  but  religious 
earnestness  is  always  nearer  the  truth  than  indiffer- 
ence, and  the  great  movement  of  which  Elijah  was  the 
head  found  large  support  among  the  prophets  of 
Jehovah.  Yet  we  must  not  forget  that  physical 
enthusiasm  is  a  dangerous  ally  to  spiritual  faith.     The 


LECT.  II.  NABOTH.  87 

revolution  of  Jehu,  which  Elisha  set  on  foot  with  the 
aid  of  the  prophetic  guilds,  used  means  that  were  far 
removed  from  the  loftiness  of  Elijah's  teaching,  and  under 
the  protection  of  Jehu's  dynasty  the  prophetic  guilds 
soon  sank  to  depths  of  hypocrisy  and  formalism  with 
which  Amos  disclaimed  all  fellowship  (Amos  vii.  14). 

One  feature  in  the  teaching  of  Elijah  still  remains, 
which  was  perhaps  the  most  immediately  important  of 
all.  The  divine  denunciation  of  the  fall  of  Ahab's 
house  had  its  basis,  not  in  the  worship  of  Baal,  but  in 
the  judicial  murder  of  Naboth  (1  Kings  xxi.) ;  and 
Wellhausen  has  given  deserved  prominence  to  the 
observation  of  Ewald,  that  this  act  of  injustice  stirred 
the  heart  of  the  nation  much  more  deeply  than  the 
religious  policy  of  the  house  of  Omri  (2  Kings  vi.  32 ; 
ix.  25  sec[}).  Naboth's  offence  was  his  obstinate  adhesion 
to  ancient  custom  and  law,  and  the  crime  of  Ahab  was 
no  common  act  of  violence,  but  an  insult  to  the  moral 
sense  of  all  Israel.  In  condemning  it  Elijah  pleaded  the 
cause  of  Jehovah  as  the  cause  of  civil  order  and  right- 
eousness ;  the  God  as  whose  messenger  he  spoke  was 
the  God  by  whom  kings  reign  and  princes  decree 
justice.  The  sovereignty  of  Jehovah  was  not  an  empty 
thought ;  it  was  the  refuge  of  the  oppressed,  the  support 
of  the  weak  against  the  mighty.  Without  this  it  would 
have  been  nothing  to  declare  war  against  the  Tyrian 
Baal ;  if  Jehovah  claimed  Israel  as  His  dominion,  in 
which  no  other  god  could  find  a  place,  He  did  so  because 
His  rule  was  the  rule  of  absolute  righteousness. 


88  THE  HOUSE  lect.  ii. 

It  would  have  been  Avell  for  the  house  of  Jehu  if 
in  mounting  the  throne  of  Ahab  it  had  learned  this 
lesson.  But  the  dynasty  which  began  in  treachery  and 
bloodshed,  which  profaned  the  great  work  of  Elijah  by 
making  it  the  instrument  of  a  vulgar  ambition,  rooted 
Baal  out  of  the  land  without  learning  to  know  the  true 
character  of  Jehovah.  The  second  crisis  in  the  religion 
of  Israel  was  not  without  its  wholesome  issues.  The 
faith  of  Jehovah  was  never  again  assailed  from  without, 
but  within  it  grew  more  and  more  corrupt.  Priests  and 
prophets  were  content  to  enjoy  the  royal  favour  without 
remembering  that  Jehovah's  cause  was  not  victorious 
in  the  mere  extirpation  of  Baal,  and  the  nation  returned 
to  the  service  of  Jehovah  without  learning  that  that 
service  was  worthless  when  it  produced  no  other  fruits 
than  a  constant  succession  of  feasts  and  offerings.  And 
meanwhile  the  inner  state  of  Israel  became  daily  more 
desperate.  The  unhappy  Syrian  wars  sapped  the 
strength  of  the  country,  and  gradually  destroyed  the 
old  peasant  proprietors  who  were  the  best  hope  of  the 
nation.  The  gap  between  the  many  poor  and  the  few 
rich  became  wider  and  wider.  The  landless  classes  were 
ground  down  by  usury  and  oppression,  for  in  that  state 
of  society  the  landless  man  had  no  career  in  trade,  and 
was  at  the  mercy  of  the  land-holding  capitalist.  It  w^as 
of  no  avail  that  the  Damascene  enemy,  lying  as  he  did 
between  Israel  and  Assyria,  was  at  length  compelled  to 
leave  Samaria  at  peace,  and  defend  his  own  borders 
against  the  forward  march  of  the  great  Eastern  power. 


OF  JEHU.,  89 


or  that  the  last  kings  of  the  house  of  Jehu  availed 
tliemselves  of  this  diversion  to  restore  the  external 
greatness  of  their  empire,  not  only  on  the  Syrian 
frontier,  but  by  successful  campaigns  against  the 
Moabites.  Under  Jeroboam  II.  the  outward  state  of 
Israel  appeared  as  brilliant  as  in  the  best  days  of  old, 
and  the  wealth  and  splendour  of  the  court  seemed  to 
the  superficial  observer  to  promise  a  long  career  of 
j)rosperity  ;  but,  with  all  these  outward  signs  of  fortune, 
which  the  official  organs  of  religion  interpreted  as  sure 
proofs  of  Jehovah's  favour,  the  state  of  the  nation  was 
rotten  at  the  core ;  there  was  no  truth  or  mercy  or 
knowledge  of  God  in  the  land.  A  closer  view  of  the 
condition  of  Israel  at  this  epoch  must,  however,  be 
reserved  for  our  study  of  the  prophets  who  have  left  the 
record  of  it  in  their  written,  books — Amos  of  Tekoah 
and  Hosea  ben  Beeri. 


90  AMOS  AND  THE  lect.  hi. 


LECTUEE   III. 

AMOS   AND   THE   HOUSE   OF  JEHU. 

The  century  during  which  the  house  of  Jehu  reigned 
over  Israel  is  handled  very  briefly  in  the  epitome  of  the 
history  of  Ephraim  preserved  to  us  in  the  book  of 
Kings.  It  was  in  its  first  part  a  time  of  wars  and 
troubles,  in  which  the  house  of  Josejoh  maintained 
itself  with  difficulty  against  the  power  of  Damascus. 
The  Aramasans,  supported  by  the  Ammonites,  devas- 
tated the  lands  east  of  the  Jordan  with  circumstances 
of  barbarity  which  were  still  fresh  in  the  memory  of 
the  Hebrews  when  Amos  wrote  (Amos  i.  3,  13 ; 
2  Kings  X.  32  seri).  The  frontier  land  of  Gilead,  wdiich 
appears  in  Genesis  xxxi.  as  the  sacred  boundary 
between  Jacob  and  the  Aramaean,  had  most  to  suffer, 
but  the  whole  kingdom  was  more  than  once  in  the 
sorest  straits  (2  Kings  xiii.  3  8cc[.\  Amos  iv.  10). 
The  Israelites  played  a  manful  part  in  the  unequal 
struggle,  and  at  length,  as  we  read  in  2  Kings  xiii.  5, 
Jehovah  "  gave  to  them  a  deliverer,  and  they  went  forth 
from  under  the  hand  of  Syria,  and  the  children  of 
Israel    dwelt    in    their    tents    as    beforetime."      The 


LECT.  III.  HOUSE  OF  JEHU.  91 

"  deliverer,"  as  we  now  know,  can  be  no  other  than 
the  host  of  the  Assyrians,  who  began  to  make  expedi- 
tions in  the  direction  of  Damascus  under  Shalmaneser 
II.,  and  received  tribute  from  Jehu  in  one  of  the  first 
years  of  his  reign  (B.C.  842).  To  us  it  seems  plain  enough 
that  the  forward  movement  of  a  great  empire  boded 
inevitable  destruction  to  all  the  minor  states  of  Syria 
and  Palestine,  and  that  the  advance  of  the  Assyrians 
could  not  be  checked  till  they  came  to  measure  them- 
selves with  the  other  great  power  that  Avas  seated  on 
the  Nile.  At  first,  however,  the  Hebrews  had  very 
little  conception  of  the  power  and  plans  of  so  remote  a 
nation.  The  earliest  historical  allusions  to  the  enemy 
that  held  Damascus  in  check  are  so  vague  that  we  are 
led  to  suppose  that  the  very  name  of  Assyria  was 
unknown  to  the  mass  of  the  Hebrews  ;  ^  and  the  tribute 
of  Jehu  seems  to  have  been  offered  to  the  conqueror 
of  Hazael  without  being  extorted  by  armed  force. 
Damascus  barred  the  road  from  the  Tigris  to  Palestine, 
and  till  Damascus  fell  the  successes  of  Assyria  served 
to  give  Israel  a  needful  breathing  time.  We  cannot 
follow  in  detail  the  wars  between  the  Aramaeans  and 
the  Great  King  ;  but  it  is  plain  that  they  ultimately 
broke  the  power  of  Damascus.  The  Israelites,  so  long 
put  on  their  defence,  w^ere  able  to  assume  the  aggres- 
sive, and  under  Jeroboam  11.  the  old  boundaries  of  the 
land  were  restored,  and  even  Moab  once  more  became 
tributary  (2  Kings  xiv.  25 ;  Amos  vi.  14).^  The  defeat 
of  Moab  at  this  time  appears  to  be  the  subject  of  the 


92  THE  PROPHECY  OF  lect.  iit. 

ancient  fragment,  Isaiah  xv.,  xvi.,  now  incorporated  as 
a  quotation  in  the  book  of  Isaiah,  which  represents  the 
fall  of  the  proud  and  once  prosperous  nation  as  a  proof 
of  'C):^^  helplessness  of  its  gods,  who  can  give  no  answer 
to  their  worshippers.^  To  Israel,  on  the  contrary,  their 
victory  was  a  new  proof  of  Jehovah's  might,  and  we 
learn  from  2  Kings  xiv.  25  that  ICing  Jeroboam  was 
encouraged  in  his  successful  wars  by  the  word  of 
Jehovah,  spoken  through  the  prophet  Jonah  of  Gath- 
hepher.  It  has  been  conjectured  that  part  of  the 
prophecy  of  Jonah  is  preserved  in  the  passage  quoted 
by  Isaiah,  who  expressly  tells  us  (xvi.  14)  that  it  is 
a  word  spoken  by  Jehovah  against  Moab  long  ago 
(A.V.  "  from  that  time  ").  There  is,  however,  nothing 
in  the  prophecy  which  implies  that  its  author  belonged 
to  the  invading  nation.  He  seems  rather  to  watch  the 
fall  of  Moab  from  a  neutral  position,  and  the  only 
verses  which  are  not  taken  up  with  a  description  of  the 
calamity  suggest  rather  that  the  writer  was  a  Juda^an. 
The  Moabites  are  described  as  fleeing  southward  and 
taking  refuge  in  the  Edomite  capital  of  Sela,  whence 
they  are  exhorted  to  send  tokens  of  homage  to  the 
Davidic  king  in  Jerusalem,  Edom's  overlord,  entreat- 
ing his  protection  and  mediation  (xvi.  1,  3,  4),  while 
this  exercise  of  mercy  towards  the  fallen  is  recom- 
mended as  a  worthy  deed,  tending  to  confirm  the  just 
rule  of  the  house  of  David.  We  must  not,  however, 
linger  over  this  prophecy,  which  is  too  fragmentary  to 
be  interpreted  with  certainty  when  we  have  so  little 


LECT.  III.  ISAIAH  XV.,  XVI.  93 

knowledge  of  its  history.  The  glimpse  which  it  gives 
us  of  one  sitting  in  truth  in  the  tent  of  David,  searching 
out  justice  and  prompt  in  righteousness,  will  prove 
valuable  when  we  come  to  be  more  closely  concerned 
with  the  Southern  Kingdom  ;  but  under  the  dynasty  of 
Jehu  our  chief  interest  still  lies  in  the  North,  whose 
monarchs  overshadowed  the  Davidic  kings  as  the  cedar 
of  Lebanon  overshadows  the  thistle  that  grows  at  its 
foot  (2  Kings  xiv.  9).  After  the  victories  of  Jeroboam 
the  house  of  Ephraim  enjoyed  external  prosperity  for 
a  whole  generation ;  wealth  accumulated  and  luxury 
increased.  It  seems,  however,  that  the  advantages  of 
this  gleam  of  fortune  were  reaped  almost  exclusively 
by  the  aristocracy.  The  strength  of  old  Israel  had  lain 
in  the  free  agricultural  class,  who  formed  the  national 
militia,  and  in  peace  and  war  gathered  round  the  here- 
ditary heads  of  their  clans  as  their  natural  leaders. 
We  must  suppose  the  life  of  Israel  in  its  best  times  to 
have  been  very  similar  to  what  is  still  found  in  secluded 
and  primitive  Semitic  communities,  where  habits  of 
military  organisation  are  combined  with  simplicity  of 
manners  and  steady  industry.  The  Israelites  were  an 
isolated  people,  and  became  so  in  an  increasing  degree 
as  the  doctrine  of  Jehovah's  jealousy  made  it  more  diffi- 
cult for  them  to  enter  into  alliance  with  other  states 
(Deut.  xxxiii.  28 ;  Num.  xxiii.  9).  To  maintain  their 
position  amidst  hostile  nations,  their  superiority  over 
the  subjugated  Canaanites,  it  was  necessary  for  them  to 
observe  a  sort  of  standing  military  discipline.     Among 


94  THE  DECLINE  lect.  hi. 

all  Semitic  tribes  which  have  successfully  asserted  their 
independence  in  similar  circumstances  we  find  an 
almost  ascetic  frugality  of  life,  such  as  becomes  men 
who  are  half  soldiers  half  farmers.  Custom  prescribes 
that  the  rich  should  live  on  ordinary  days  as  simply 
as  their  poorer  neighbours  ;  there  is  no  humiliating 
interval  between  the  several  classes  of  society.  The 
chiefs  are  the  fathers  of  their  clan,  receiving  a  prompt 
and  child-like  obedience  in  time  of  war,  administering 
justice  with  an  authority  that  rests  on  custom  rather 
than  on  force,  and  therefore  obeyed  and  loved  in  pro- 
portion as  they  are  themselves  true  to  traditional  usages. 
The  power  of  custom  is  unbounded,  and  notwithstand- 
ing the  strong  sense  of  personal  dignity  common  to 
all  free  men,  which  in  the  oldest  Hebrew  laws  finds  its 
expression  in  the  entire  absence  of  corporal  punish- 
ments, individual  liberty,  as  we  understand  it,  is 
strictly  confined  by  the  undisputed  authority  of  usage 
in  every  detail  of  life.  A  small  nation  so  organised 
may  do  great  things  in  the  Semitic  world,  but  is  very 
liable  to  sudden  collapse  when  the  old  forms  of  life 
break  down  under  change  of  circumstances.  Eastern 
history  is  full  of  examples  of  the  rapidity,  to  us  almost 
incredible,  with  which  nations  that  have  grown  strong 
by  temperance,  discipline,  and  self-restraint  pass  from 
their  highest  glory  into  extreme  corruption  and  social 
disintegration.* 

Now,  in  Israel,  under  Saul  and  David,  the  kingship 
was  only  the  natural  development  and  crown  of  the  old 


LECT.  III.  OF  EPHRAIM.  95 

tribal  system.  But  with  Solomon  the  transition  to  the 
vices  of  Oriental  despotism  began  to  be  felt.  In 
Northern  Israel,  though  not  in  Judah,  Solomon  sub- 
stituted government  by  officials  of  the  Court  for  the 
ancient  aristocratic  organisation,  and  his  levies  of 
forced  labour  and  other  innovations  also  tended  directly 
to  break  down  the  old  estate  of  Israel's  freemen.  The 
rebellion  under  Jeroboam  was  beyond  question  a  con- 
servative revolution,  but  with  the  rise  of  the  house  of 
Omri  the  policy  of  Solomon  reappears  at  the  Northern 
Court,  and  we  have  seen  what  deep  offence  Ahab  gave 
by  his  high-handed  interference  with  ancient  custom 
and  privilege.^  Under  the  dynasty  of  Jehu  the  old 
order  of  things  may  have  had  a  temporary  victory,  but 
certainly  not  a  lasting  one.  A  dynasty  founded  by 
bloodshed  and  perfidy  was  not  likely  to  be  more  faithful 
to  ancient  law  and  custom,  more  jealous  of  the  rights 
of  subjects,  than  the  house  of  Omri.  But,  above  all,  the 
long  unhappy  wars  with  Damascus,  with  the  famines 
and  plagues  that  were  their  natural  accompaniments 
(Amos  iv.),  exhausted  the  strength  and  broke  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  poorer  freemen.  The  Court  became 
the  centre  of  a  luxurious  and  corrupt  aristocracy,  which 
seems  gradually  to  have  absorbed  the  land  and  wealth 
of  the  nation,  while  the  rest  of  the  people  were  hope- 
lessly impoverished.  The  old  good  understanding 
between  classes  disappeared,  and  the  gulf  between  rich 
and  poor  became  continually  wider.  The  poor  could 
find  no  law  against  the  rich,  who  sucked  their  blood  by 


96  THE  WORSHIP  OF  THE  lect.  hi. 

usury  and  every  form  of  fraud  (Amos  ii.  6,  7;  iv.  1 ; 
viii.  4,  etc.)  ;  civil  corruption  and  oppression  became 
daily  more  rampant  (Amos  iii.  9  seq^.,  and  imssini).  The 
best  lielp  against  sucb  disorders  ought  to  have  been 
found  in  the  religion  of  Jehovali,  but  the  official  organs 
of  that  religion  shared  in  the  general  corruption.  Into 
this  point  we  must  look  with  some  fulness  of  detail,  as 
it  is  of  the  first  consequence  for  the  understandiug  of 
many  parts  of  Amos  and  Hosea. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  revolution  inaugur- 
ated by  Elijah  and  Elisha  appealed  to  the  conservatism 
of  the  nation.  It  was  followed  therefore  by  no  attempt 
to  remodel  the  traditional  forms  of  Jehovah  worship, 
which  continued  essentially  as  they  had  been  since  the 
time  of  the  Jud<^es.  The  o-olden  calves  remained  undis- 
turbed,  though  they  were  plainly  out  of  place  in  the 
worship  of  a  Deity  who  had  so  markedly  separated 
himself  from  the  gods  of  the  nations  ;  and  with  them 
there  remained  also  many  other  religious  institutions 
and  symbols — such,  as  the  Ashera  or  sacred  pole  at 
Samaria  (A.V.  "grove,"  2  Kings  xiii.  6) — which  were 
common  to  Israel  with  the  Canaanites,  and  in  their 
influence  on  the  popular  imagination  could  only  tend  to 
efface  true  conceptions  of  the  God  of  Elijah,  and  drag 
Him  down  again  to  the  level  of  a  heathen  deity.  Yet 
the  sanctuaries  which  contained  so  many  elements 
unfavourable  to  a  spiritual  faith  were  still  the  indispen- 
sable centres  of  national  religion.  True  religion  can 
never  be  the  affair  of  the  individual  alone.      A  YYj\\t 


LECT.  III.         NORTHERN  SANCTUARIES.  97 

religions  relation  to  God  must  include  a  relation  to  our 
fellow-men  in  God,  and  solitary  acts  of  devotion  can 
never  satisfy  the  wants  of  healthy  spiritual  life,  which 
calls  for  a  visible  expression  of  the  fact  that  we  worship 
God  together  in  the  common  faith  which  binds  us  into 
a  religious  community.  The  necessity  for  acts  of  public 
and  united  worship  is  instinctively  felt  wherever  reli- 
gion has  a  social  influence,  and  in  Israel  it  was  felt  the 
more  strongly  because  Jehovah  was  primarily  the  God 
and  King  of  the  nation,  who  had  to  do  with  the  indivi- 
dual Israelite  only  in  virtue  of  his  place  in  the  common- 
Avealth.  It  was  in  the  ordering  of  national  affairs,  the 
sanctioning  of  social  duties,  that  Jehovah  made  Himself 
directly  present  to  His  people,  and  so  their  recognition 
of  His  Godhead  necessarily  took  a  public  form,  when 
they  rejoiced  before  Him  at  His  sanctuary.  The 
Israelite  could  not  in  general  have  the  same  personal 
sense  of  Jehovah's  presence  in  his  closet  as  when  he 
"  appeared  before  Him "  or  "  saw  His  face "  at  the 
try  sting-place  where  He  met  with  His  people  as  a  king 
meets  with  his  subjects,  receiving  from  them  the 
expression  of  their  homage  in  the  usual  Oriental  form 
of  a  gift  (Exod.  xxiii.  15,  17),  and  answering  their 
devotion  by  words  of  blessing  or  judgment  conveyed 
through  the  priest  (Deut.  x.  8  ;  xxxiii.  8,  10).  It  was 
at  the  altar  that  Jehovah  came  to  His  people  and 
blessed  them  (Exod.  xx.  24),  and  acts  of  worship  at  a 
distance  from  the  sanctuary  assumed  the  exceptional 
character   of    vows,  and   were    directed    towards    the 


98  THE   WORSHIP  OF  THE  lect.  hi. 

sanctuary  (1  Kings  viii.),  where  in  due  time  they  should 
be  supplemented  by  the  payment  of  thank-offerings. 
How  absolutely  access  to  the  sanctuary  was  conceived 
as  the  indispensable  basis  of  all  religion  appears  from 
the  conception  that  Jehovali  cannot  be  w^orshipped  in 
foreign  lands  (1  Sam.  .  xvj   .  ^.  -rpC  lands  are 

themselves  unclean  (A];iios  vii.  1<    ;  th?.t  the  cap- 

tives in  Assyria  and  ^gypi^,  \.-  c*  nnr  ,,^6.  .  ^d4nk- 
offerings  and  sacrifices  to  Jehovah,  are  like  men  who 
eat  the  unclean  bread  of  mourners  "  because  their  food 
for  their  life  is  not  brought  into  the  house  of  Jehovah  " 
(Hosea  ix.  4).  So  too  when  Hosea  describes  the  coming 
days  of  exile,  when  the  children  of  Israel  shall  remain 
for  many  days  without  king  or  captain,  without  sacrifice 
or  ma(^Qeha  (the  sacred  stone  which  marked  the  ancient 
sanctuaries),  without  cpliod  (plated  image),  or  tera^liim 
(household  images),  he  represents  this  condition  as  a 
temporary  separation  of  Jehovah's  spouse  from  all  the 
privileges  of  wedlock.^ 

While  the  sanctuaries  and  their  service  held  this 
position,  every  corruption  in  the  worship  practised  at 
them  affected  the  religion  of  Israel  at  its  very  core. 
The  worship  at  the  sanctuaries  was  guided  by  the 
priests,  whose  business  it  was  to  place  the  savour  of  the 
sacrifice  before  Jehovah,  and  lay  whole  burnt-offerings 
on  His  altar  (Deut.  xxxiii.  10).  The  personal  interests 
of  the  priests  lay  all  in  the  encouragement  of  copious 
gifts  and  offerings  ;  and,  as  the  people  had  the  choice  of 
various  sanctuaries — Bethel,  Gilgal,  Dan,  Mizpah,  Tabor, 


LECT.  III.         NORTHERN  SANCTUARIES.  99 

Shechem,  etc.  (Amos  v.  5;  Hosea  v.  1;  vi.  9,  where  for  hy 
consent  read  at  Shcchcm) — and  /pilgrimages  to  distant 
shrines  were  a  favourite  religious  exercise  (Amos  v.  5  ; 
viii.  14),  the  priesthoods  of  the  several  holy  places  were 
naturally  led  to  ^^'^^  with  one  another  in  making  the 
services  att  lie  maVses.     The  sacred  feasts 

were  occaslono  \.i  LnJ:tli  and  joll^^v  (Hosea  ii.  11),  where 
men  v  .i.  1  "ralils:,  ^hg  and  danced,  with  unrestrained 
merriment.  The  poet  of  Lament,  ii.  7  compares  the  din 
in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  on  a  great  feast  day  to  the 
clamour  of  an  army  storming  the  town.  It  is  easy  to 
judge  what  shape  the  rivalry  of  popular  sanctuaries 
would  take  under  these  circumstances.  The  great 
ambition  of  each  priesthood  was  to  add  every  element 
of  luxury  and  physical  enjoyment  to  the  holy  fairs. 
The  Canaanite  ritual  offered  a  model  only  too  attractive 
to  the  Semitic  nature,  which  knows  no  mean  between 
almost  ascetic  frugality  and  unrestrained  self-indulgence, 
and  Amos  and  Hosea  describe  drunkenness  and  shock- 
ing licentiousness  as  undisguised  accompaniments  of 
the  sacred  services  (Amos  ii.  7,  8  ;  Hosea  iv.  14).  The 
prosperous  days  of  Jeroboam  II.  gave  a  new  impulse  to 
these  excesses ;  feasts  and  sacrifices  were  more  frequent 
than  ever,  for  was  it  not  Jehovah,  or  rather  the  Baalim — 
that  is,  the  local  manifestations  of  Jehovah  under  the 
form  of  the  golden  calves — who  had  given  Israel  the 
good  things  of  peace  and  plenty  (Hosea  ii.  5  seq.)  ?  The 
whole  nation  seemed  given  up  to  mad  riotousness  under 
the  prostituted  name  of  religion  :  "  whoredom  and  wine 
and^ust  had  turned  their  head  "  (Hosea  iv.  11).  ; 


100  JUDICIAL  FUNCTIONS  lect.  hi. 

In  order,  however,  fully  to  appreciate  the  corrupting 
influence  of  these  degraded  holy  places  and  their 
ministers,  we  must  remember  that  in  the  ancient  con- 
stitution of  Israel  the  sanctuary  and  the  priesthood  had 
another  function  even  more  important  tlmn  that  con- 
nected with  feasts  and  joyous  sacrifices.  Since  the 
days  of  Moses  it  had  been  the  law  of  Israel  that  causes 
too  hard  for  the  ordinary  judges,  who  decided  by 
custom  and  precedent,  must  be  brought  before  God  for 
decision  (Exod.  xviii.  19).  In  the  oldest  part  of  the 
Hebrew  legislation  the  word  which  our  version  renders 
"judges"  properly  means  "God"  (Exod.  xxi.  6;  xxii. 
8),  and  to  bring  a  case  before  God  means  to  bring  it  to 
the  sanctuary.  It  was  at  the  door-post  of  the  sanctuary 
that  the  symbolic  action  was  performed  by  which  a 
Hebrew  man  might  voluntarily  accept  a  life-long 
service  ;  it  was  God  speaking  at  the  sanctuary  who  was 
appealed  to  in  disputed  questions  of  property.  "  If 
one  man  sin  against  another,"  says  Eli,  quoting  it  would 
seem,  an  old  proverb,  "God  shall  give  judgment  on 
him."  This  judgment  was  the  affair  of  the  priests,  who 
sometimes  administered  the  ''  oath  of  Jehovah,"  which 
was  accepted  as  an  oath  of  purgation  (Exod.  xxii.  11) ; 
in  other  cases  the  holy  lot  of  the  Urim  and  Thummim 
was  appealed  to  ;  but  in  general  no  doubt  the  priests 
acted  mainly  as  the  conservators  of  ancient  sacred 
law ;  it  was  their  business  to  teach  Jacob  Jehovah's 
judgments  and  Israel  His  law  (Deut.  xxxiii.  10),  and  in 
better  days  it  was  their  highest  praise  that  they  dis- 


LECT.  III.  OF  THE  PRIESTS.  101 

charged  this  duty  without  fear  or  favour,  tliat  they 
observed  Jehovah's  word  and  kept  His  covenant  without 
respect  to  father  or  mother,  brethren  or  children  {ihicl. 
ver.  9).  Those  days,  however,  were  past.  Under  the 
kingship  the  judicial  functions  of  the  priests  were 
necessarily  brought  into  connection  with  the  office  of 
the  sovereign,  who  was  Jehovah's  representative  in 
matters  of  judgment,  as  well  as  in  other  affairs  of  state 
(2  Sam.  viii.  15  ;  xiv.  17  ;  1  Kings  iii.  28).  The  priests 
became,  in  a  sense,  officers  of  the  Court,  and  the  chief 
priest  of  a  royal  sanctuary,  such  as  Amaziah  at  Bethel 
(Amos  vii.  10, 13),  was  one  of  the  great  officials  of  state. 
(Compare  2  Sam.  viii.  17  sc^.,  where  the  king's  priests 
already  appear  in  the  list  of  grandees.)  Thus  the 
priesthood  were  naturally  associated  in  feelings  and 
interests  with  the  corrupt  tyrannical  aristocracy,  and 
were  as  notorious  as  the  lords  temporal  for  neglect  of 
law  and  justice.  The  strangest  scenes  of  lawlessness 
were  seen  in  the  sanctuaries — revels  where  the  fines 
paid  to  the  priestly  judges  were  spent  in  wine-drinking, 
ministers  of  the  altars  stretched  for  these  carousals  on 
garments  taken  in  pledge  in  defiance  of  sacred  law 
(Amos  ii.  8  ;  comp.  Exod.  xxii.  26  scq^).  Hosea  accuses 
the  priests  of  Shechem  of  highway  robbery  and 
murder  (Hosea  vi.  9,  Heh})  ;  the  sanctuary  of  Gilead  w^as 
polluted  \vith  blood,  and.  the  prophet  explains  the 
general  dissolution  of  moral  order,  the  reign  of  lawless- 
ness in  all  parts  of  the  land,  by  the  fact  that  the  priests, 
whose  business  it  Avas  to  maintain  the  knowledge  of 


102  HEBREW  CONCEPTION  lect.  ii 

Jehovah  and  Hia   laws,  had  forgotten  this  holy  trust 
(Hosea  iv.). 

The  whole  effect  of  the  unfaithfulness  of  the  priests 
upon  national  morality  and  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong 
cannot  be  appreciated  without  some  explanation  of  the 
point  of  view  under  which  the  early  Hebrew^s  looked 
upon  sin.  We  have  already  had  occasion  to  see  that  ii 
early  nations  the  idea  of  law,  or  binding  custom,  is  C( 
extensive  with  morality,  and  that,  among  the  Hebre\\'s 
in  particular,  right  and  wrong  are  habitually  viewed  ^^om 
a  forensic  point  of  view.  This,  of  course,  influences  the 
notion  of  sin.  The  fundamental  meaning  of  the  Hebrew 
word  lidta,  to  sin,  is  to  be  at  fault,  and  in  Hebrew,  as  in 
Arabic,  the  active  (causative)  form  has  the  sense  of  miss- 
ing the  mark  (Judges  xx.  16)  or  other  object  aimed  at. 
The  notion  of  sin,  therefore,  is  that  of  blunder  or  derelic- 
tion, and  the  word  is  associated  with  others  that  indicate 
error,  folly,  or  want  of  skill  and  insight  (1  Sam.  xxvi. 
21).  This  idea  has  various  applications,  but,  in  par- 
ticular, a  man  is  at  fault  when  he  fails  to  fulfil  his 
engagements,  or  to  obey  a  binding  command  ;  and  in 
Hebrew  idiom  the  failure  is  a  "  sin,"  whether  it  be  wil- 
ful failure,  or  be  due  to  foroetfulness,  or  even  be  altosrether 
involuntary.  Jonathan's  infringement  of  his  father's 
prohibition  and  curse  in  1  Sam.  xiv.  was  not  less  a 
"  sin  "  in  this  sense  because  he  did  not  know  what  Saul 
had  enjoined.  In  two  respects,  then,  the  Hebrew  idea 
of  sin,  in  its  earlier  stages,  is  quite  distinct  from  that 
which  we  attach  to  the  word.     In  the  first  place,  it  is 


LECT.  III.  OF  SIN,  103 

not  necessarily  thought  of  as  offence  against  God,  but 
includes  any  act  that  puts  a  man  in  the  wrong  with  those 
who  have  power  to  make  him  rue  it  (2  Kings  xviii.  14). 
"  What  is  my  sin  before  thy  father,"  says  David,  ''  that 
he  seeks  my  life?"  (1  Sam.  xx.  1).  "That  which  was 
torn  of  beasts,"  says  Jacob  to  Laban,  "  I  brought  not  to 
thee  ;  I  bore  the  loss  of  it " — literally,  I  took  it  as  my 
sin  (Gen.  xxxi.  39).  If  David  dies,  says  Bathsheba, 
without  providing  against  the  succession  of  Adonijah, 
"  I  and  my  son  Solomon  shall  be  sinners  "  (1  Kings  i. 
21).  In  the  second  place,  the  notion  of  sin  has  no 
necessary  reference  to  the  conscience  of  the  sinner,  it 
does  not  necessarily  involve  moral  guilt,  but  only,  so  to 
speak,  forensic  liability.  In  two  ways,  however,  the 
Hebrew  notion  of  sin  comes  into  relation  with  religion. 
In  the  first  place,  the  lively  sense  of  Jehovah's  presence 
in  Israel  as  a  King,  who  issues  commands  to  His  people 
and  does  not  fail  to  enforce  them,  gives  prominence  to 
the  conception  of  sins  against  Jehovah.  In  by  far  the 
greatest  proportion  of  passages  in  the  older  parts  of  the 
Bible  where  such  sins  are  spoken  of,  the  reference  is  to 
religious  offences,  to  the  worship  of  false  gods  or  of 
Jehovah  Himself  in  ways  not  acceptable  to  Him,  to 
disobedience  to  some  particular  injunction — as  in  the 
case  of  Saul's  failure  to  fulfil  his  commission  against 
Amalek — or  neglect  to  discharge  a  vow  (1  Sam.  xiv.  38 ; 
Judges  xxi.  22).  Offences  which  we  should  call  moral, 
such  as  polytheism,  stand  on  the  same  level  with  dis- 
obedience to  purely  ritual  customs,  such  as  eating  the 


104  CORRUPTION  OF  lect.  hi. 

flesli  of  animals  whose  blood  has  not  been  offered  to 
Jehovah  (1  Sam.  xiv.  33  seq}}^  or  with  such  an  offence 
against  popular  feeling  as  David's  numbering  of  the 
people  (2  Sam.  xxiv.  17).  In  cases  like  the  last  the  sin 
is  not  clearly  felt  to  be  such  until  misfortune  follows, 
and  this  habit  of  judging  actions  by  subsequent  events, 
which  plainly  might  give  rise  to  very  distorted  views  of 
right  and  wrong  if  guided  only  by  popular  feeling, 
became,  under  the  spiritual  guidance  of  the  prophets, 
a  chief  means  to  produce  juster  and  deeper  views  of 
Jehovah's  holy  will.  But,  in  the  second  place,  offences 
of  man  against  man  came  to  be  viewed  as  religious 
offences,  inasmuch  as  Jehovah  is  the  supreme  judge 
before  whom  such  cases  come  for  decision  (Judges  xi.  27 ; 
1  Sam.  ii.  25).  The  whole  sphere  of  law  in  Israel  is 
Jehovah's  province,  and  He  is  the  vindicator,  not  only 
of  His  own  direct  commands,  but  of  all  points  of  social 
order  regulated  by  traditional  law  and  custom.  Thus, 
in  virtue  of  the  coincidence  of  law  and  custom  with 
moral  obligation,  Jehovah,  in  His  quality  of  judge,  has 
to  do  with  every  part  of  morals,  and  all  kinds  of  sin  in 
Israel  come  before  His  tribunal.  Jehovah  has  many 
ways  of  vindicating  the  right  and  punishing  sinners,  for 
He  commands  the  forces  of  nature  as  well  as  presides 
over  the  visible  ordinances  of  judgment  in  Israel.  But 
it  was  to  the  judgment-seat  at  the  sanctuary  that  the 
man  who  felt  himself  wronged  naturally  turned  for 
redress,  and  the  man  who  knew  he  had  done  wrong 
turned  for  expiation,  which  was  granted  by  means  of 


LECT.  III.  THE  PRIESTHOOD.  105 

sacrifice  (1  Sam.  iii.  14 ;  xxvi.  19),  or  on  a  money 
payment  to  tlie  priests  (2  Kings  xii.  16),  the  latter  being 
regarded  in  the  light  of  a  fine,  which  was  naturally  held 
to  wipe  out  the  offence  in  a  state  of  society  when  all 
breaches  of  law,  except  wilful  bloodshed,  were  cancelled 
by  payment  of  a  pecuniary  equivalent.  When  the  priests, 
therefore,  began  to  view  the  sins  of  the  people  as  a 
regular  and  desirable  source  of  income,  as  we  learn  from 
Hosea  iv.  8  that  they  actually  did  in  the  times  of  that 
prophet,  the  whole  idea  of  right  and  wrong  was  reduced 
to  a  money  standard,  and  the  moral  sense  of  the  com- 
munity was  proportionally  debased  in  every  relation  of 
life. 

The  shortcomings  of  the  priesthood  might,  in  some 
measure,  have  been  supplied  if  the  prophets,  whose 
influence  with  the  masses  was  doubtless  still  great,  had 
retained  aught  of  the  spirit  of  Elijah.  But  prophecy 
had  sunk  to  a  mere  trade  (Amos  vii.  12).  Hosea  brackets 
prophet  and  priest  in  a  common  condemnation.  In 
the  fall  of  the  priesthood  the  prophet  shall  fall  with 
him  (Hosea  iv.  5). 

Was  everything  then  lost  which  Elijah  had  con- 
tended for  ?  Was  there  nothing  in  the  nation  of  Jehovah 
to  distinguish  it  from  other  peoples,  except  that  pre-emi- 
nence in  corruption  against  which  Amos  calls  the  heathen 
themselves  as  witnesses  (Amos  iii.  9  seg')  ?  In  reading 
the  prophetic  denunciations  of  the  kingdom  of  Jeroboam 
we  might  almost  deem  that  it  was  so ;  and  there  can 
be  no  question  that  the  inner  decay  of  the  state  had 


106  ISRAEL  NOT 


gone  so  far  that  it  was  impossible  to  restore  new  and 
healthy  life  to  the  existent  body  politic.  But,  on  the 
one  hand,  it  must  be  remembered  that  Amos  and  Hosea, 
in  virtue  of  their  function  as  preachers  of  reformation, 
and  uncompromising  exposers  of  every  abuse,  necessarily 
give  exclusive  prominence  to  the  evils  of  the  state,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  Amos  at 
least  speaks  almost  solely  of  the  corruption  of  the 
wealthy  and  ruling  classes,  whose  vices  in  an  Eastern 
kingdom  are  far  from  a  true  index  to  the  moral  condi- 
tion of  the  poorer  orders.  Amos  by  no  means  regards 
the  sinners  of  Jehovah's  people  (chap.  ix.  10)  as  co- 
extensive with  Israel.  He  likens  the  impending  judg- 
ment to  the  sifting  of  corn  in  a  sieve,  in  which  no  good 
grain  falls  to  the  ground.  There  was  still  a  remnant  in 
Ephraim  that  could  be  compared  to  sound  corn  ;  and, 
though  all  the  sinners  must  perish,  Jehovah,  he  tells  us, 
will  not  utterly  destroy  the  house  of  Jacob  (ver.  8). 

This,  it  may  be  at  once  observed,  is  a  characteristic 
feature  of  all  Old  Testament  prophecy.  The  prophets 
have  much  to  say  of  the  sins  of  Israel,  sins  so  aggra- 
vated that  Jehovah  can  no  longer  pass  them  by  ;  but 
they  never  despair  of  Jehovah's  good  cause  in  the  midst 
of  the  nation,  or  hold  that  all  His  goodness  and  grace 
have  been  lavished  on  Israel  to  no  purpose.  Amidst 
the  universal  corruption  there  remains  a  seed  of  better 
hope,  some  tangible  and  visible  basis  for  the  assurance 
that  Jehovah  will  yet  shape  from  the  remnant  of  the 
reprobate  nation  a  people  worthy  of  His  love.     This 


LECT.  III.  WHOLLY  CORRUPT.  107 


conviction  is  not  expressed  in  the  language  of  modern 
sentimental  optimism,  which  will  not  give  up  all  hope 
even  of  the  most  depraved  men.  The  prophets  were  not 
primarily  concerned  with  the  amendment  of  individual 
sinners ;  it  was  the  nation  that  they  desired  to  see  fol- 
lowing righteousness  and  the  knowledge  of  Jehovah, 
and  they  were  too  practical  not  to  know  that  the  path 
of  national  amendment  is  to  get  rid  of  evil-doers  and  put 
better  men  in  their  place  (comp.  Jer.  xiii.  23,  24).  But 
this  they  feel  is  not  a  thing  impossible ;  there  is  a  true 
tradition  of  the  knowledge  and  fear  of  Jehovah  in  the 
land,  though  it  has  no  influence  on  the  actual  leaders  of 
the  state  ;  and  in  appealing  to  this  higher  conception  of 
duty  and  faith  they  feel  that  their  words  are  not  spoken 
to  the  winds,  but  that  they  are  advocating  a  cause  which, 
sustained  by  Jehovah's  own  hand,  must  ultimately 
triumph  in  that  very  community  which  at  present  seems 
so  wholly  given  up  to  evil.  So,  when  Elijah  complains 
that  he  is  left  alone  in  his  jealousy  for  Jehovah  God  of 
hosts,  the  divine  voice  answers  him  that,  in' the  sweeping 
judgment  to  be  executed  by  the  swords  of  Jehu  and 
Hazael,  he  will  spare  seven  thousand  men,  all  the  knees 
which  have  not  bowed  to  Baal,  and  every  mouth  which 
hath  not  kissed  him.  (In  1  Kings  xix.  18,  for  "  Yet  I 
have  left"  read  "And  I  will  leave,"  comp.  2  Kings  xiii.  7.) 
The  clearest  proof  that  Jehovah's  work  in  time  past 
had  not  been  without  fruit  in  Israel  lies  in  the  high  and 
commanding  tone  that  prophets  like  Amos  assume. 
When   they   speak   of    the   omnipotent   Jehovah,   the 


108  RELIGIOUS  STANDARD  lect.  hi.       \ 

Creator  of  heaven  and  eartli,  the  Lord  of  all  nations,  to 
whose  supreme  purpose  of  righteousness  all  nature  and 
all  history  must  bend,  they  confess  themselves  to  be 
speaking  truths  that  the  mass  of  their  countrymen  ignore, 
but  never  claim  to  be  preachers  of  a  new  or  unheard-of 
religion.  If  it  sometimes  appears  that  they  treat  Israel 
as  sunk  below  the  level  even  of  heathen  nations,  it  is 
elsewhere  plain  that  they  measure  the  people  of  Jehovah 
by  a  standard  which  could  not  be  applied  to  those  who 
have  never  known  the  living  God»  The  keynote  of  the 
prophecy  of  Amos  lies  in  the  w^ords  of  chap.  iii.  2,  "  You 
only  have  I  known  of  all  families  of  the  earth  ;  there- 
fore I  will  punish  you  for  all  your  iniquities."  The 
guilt  of  Israel  is  its  declension,  not  from  the  common 
standard  of  other  nations,  and  not  from  a  new  standard 
now  heard  of  for  the  first  time,  but  from  a  standard 
already  set  before  them  by  the  unique  Jehovah  who 
had  made  this  nation  His  own.  For  the  right  under- 
standing of  the  prophets,  it  is  plainly  of  the  highest 
importance  to  realise,  with  some  precision,  what  this 
standard  was. 

Up  to  quite  a  recent  date  it  was  commonly  assumed 
that  this  question  presented  no  difficulty  ;  the  laws  of 
the  Pentateuch,  fully  written  out  by  Moses  and  con- 
tinuously preserved  from  his  days,  were  held  to  have 
been  the  unvarying  rule  of  faith  and  obedience  before 
as  after  the  Exile.  In  the  present  day  this  easy  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  can  no  longer  be  accepted  by  his- 
torical students.     The  prophets  before"  the  Exile  never 


LECT.  III.  OF  THE  PROPHETS.  109 

appeal  to  the  finislied  system  of  the  Pentateuch.  The 
older  historical  books  do  not  appeal  to  it ;  and  in  fact 
the  several  parts  of  these  books  can  be  classed  in  dis- 
tinct groups,  each  of  which  has  its  own  standard  of 
religious  observance  and  duty  according  to  the  age  at 
which  it  was  composed.  The  latest  history  in  the 
books  of  Chronicles  presupposes  the  whole  Pentateuch  ; 
the  main  thread  of  the  books  of  Kings  accepts  the 
standard  of  the  book  of  Deuteronomy,  but  knows 
nothing  of  the  Levitical  legislation  ;  and  older  narratives 
now  incorporated  in  the  Kings — as,  for  example,  the 
histories  of  Elijah  and  Elisha,  which  every  one  can  see 
to  be  ancient  and  distinct  documents — know  nothing  of 
the  Deuteronomic  law  of  the  one  altar,  and,  like  Elijah 
himself,  are  indifferent  even  to  the  worship  of  the  golden 
calves.  These  older  narratives,  with  the  greater  part  of 
the  books  of  Samuel  and  Judges,  accept  as  fitting  and 
normal  a  stamp  of  worship  closely  modelled  on  the 
religion  of  the  patriarchs  as  it  is  depicted  in  Genesis, 
or  based  on  the  ancient  law  of  Exod.  xx.  24,  where 
Jehovah  promises  to  meet  with  His  people  and  bless 
them  at  the  altars  of  earth  or  unhewn  stone  which 
stand  in  all  corners  of  the  land,  on  every  spot  where 
Jehovah  has  set  a  memorial  of  His  name.  And  in 
like  manner,  as  I  have  shown  at  length  in  a  former 
course  of  Lectures,  the  sacred  laws  of  Israel  which 
the  earlier  history  acknowledges  are  not  the  whole 
complicated  Pentateuchal  system,  but  essentially  the 
contents  of  that  fundamental  code  w^hich  is  given  in 


110  RELIGIOUS  STANDARD  lect.  hi. 

Exod.  xxi.-xxiii.  under  the  title  of  the  Book  of  the 
Covenant.''' 

The  limits  of  the  xDresent  Lectures  forbid  us  to  enter 
on  a  detailed  inquiry  as  to  how  much  of  the  Penta- 
teuchal  law  was  already  known  to  Amos  or  Hosea,  and 
it  would  be  unreasonable  to  ask  you  to  take  on  trust 
results  of  other  men's  researches  which  you  have  had 
no  opportunity  to  test.  We  must  rather  ask  whether 
there  is  not  some  broad  practical  method  by  which  we 
can  get  as  near  the  truth  as  is  necessary  for  our  pur- 
pose, without  committing  ourselves  to  details  that 
must  be  settled  by  the  minute  inquiries  of  scholars 
specially  equipped  for  the  task.  If  I  have  succeeded 
in  carrying  you  with  me  in  the  course  which  we  have 
already  traversed,  I  do  not  think  that  we  shall  find 
this  to  be  impossible.  We  have  not  hitherto  had  the 
help  of  any  detailed  results  of  Pentateuch  criticism, 
and  yet  by  simply  concentrating  our  attention  on  un- 
deniable historical  facts,  and  giving  them  their  due 
weight,  we  have  been  able  to  form  a  consistent  account 
of  the  progress  of  the  religion  of  Jehovah  from  Moses 
to  Elijah.  We  have  not  found  occasion  to  speak  of 
Moses  as  the  author  of  a  written  code,  and  to  inquire 
how  much  his  code  contained,  because  the  history  itself 
makes  it  plain  that  his  central  importance  for  early 
Israel  did  not  lie  in  his  writings,  but  in  his  practical 
office  as  a  judge  who  stood  for  the  people  before  God, 
and  brought  their  hard  cases  before  Him  at  the  sanc- 
tuary (Exod.  xviii.  19  ;  xxxiii.  9  seg').     It  is  this  func- 


LECT.  III.  OF  THE  PROPHETS.  Ill 

tion  of  Moses,  and  not  the  custody  of  the  written  word, 
which  appears  in  the  oldest  history  as  carried  on  by  his 
successors,  and  Israel  knew  Jehovah  as  its  Judge  and 
Lawgiver,  not  because  He  had  given  it  a  written  Torah, 
but  because  He  was  still  present  to  give  judgment  in 
its  midst.  So  again  we  have  not  found  occasion  to 
dwell  on  the  legislation  at  Mount  Sinai,  as  if  the  cove- 
nant ratified  there  were  the  proper  beginning  of  Israel's 
life  as  the  people  of  Jehovah ;  for  the  early  history 
and  the  prophets  do  not  use  the  Sinaitic  legislation 
as  the  basis  of  their  conception  of  the  relation  of 
Jehovah  to  Israel,  but  habitually  go  back  to  the 
deliverance  from  Egypt,  and  from  it  pass  directly  to 
the  wilderness  wandering  and  the  conquest  of  Canaan 
(Josh.  xxiv.  5  sccj[.,  17  scq.  ;  Amos  ii.  10  ;  Hosea  ii.  15  ; 
xi.  1  ;  xii.  9,  13  ;  Jer.  xi.  4).  We  are  thus  dispensed 
from  entering  into  knotty  questions  as  to  the  date 
of  the  several  parts  of  the  Sinaitic  legislation,  simply 
because  the  events  of  the  year  spent  at  Sinai  are 
not  those  which  have  practical  prominence  in  the 
sequel.  And  so  again,  when  we  came  to  speak  of 
Elijah,  we  found  it  unnecessary  to  ask  what  novelty  his 
work  exhibited  in  comparison  with  Pentateuchal  laws 
that  may  be  supposed  to  have  existed  in  his  time, 
because  the  practically  epoch-making  significance  of 
his  stand  against  Baal  is  rendered  clear  by  the  fact  that 
in  the  time  of  Solomon  the  introduction  of  foreign 
worships  under  similar  circumstances  passed  without 
popular  challenge,  and  that  in  Judah  Solomon's  sane- 


112  RELIGIOUS  STANDARD  lect.  hi. 

tuaries  dedicated  to  heathen  gods  were  left  untouched 
till  long  after  the  time  of  Elijah  (2  Kings  xxiii  13), 
and  must  therefore  have  been  tolerated  even  by  Ahab's 
contemporary  Jehoshaphat,  who  passed  for  a  king  of 
indubitable  orthodoxy.  Facts  like  tliese  are  landmarks 
in  the  history  which  we  cannot  afford  to  overlook,  and 
which  veracity  forbids  us  to  explain  away,  and  such 
facts,  rather  than  traditional  or  hypothetical  assump- 
tions as  to  the  date  of  the  Pentateuch,  are  our  best  key 
to  understand  the  actual  condition  of  the  people  to 
whom  the  prophets  spoke.  In  truth  those  who  hold 
the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch  and  yet 
desire  to  do  justice  to  the  history  are  compelled  to 
admit  that  it  was  practically  a  buried  book,  many  of 
its  most  central  laws  being  quite  ignored  by  the  best 
kings  and  the  most  enlightened  priests.  They  were 
equally  ignored  by  the  prophets,  as  we  shall  see 
more  clearly  in  the  sequel,  and  so  for  the  historical 
study  of  the  prophets  and  their  work  we  must  leave 
them  on  one  side,  and  direct  our  attention  to  things 
that  can  be  shown  to  have  had  practical  place  and 
recognition  in  Israel.  In  other  words,  the  history  and 
the  prophets  are  not  to  be  interpreted  by  the  Penta- 
teuch, but  they  themselves  must  be  our  guides  in 
determining  what  constituted  the  sum  of  the  extant 
knowledge  of  Jehovah  in  the  time  to  which  they 
belong. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  it  is  perfectly  clear  that 
the  great  mass  of  Levitical  legislation,  with  its  ritual 


LECT.  III.  OF  THE  PROPHETS.  113 

entirely  constructed  for  the  sanctuary  of  the  ark  and 
the  priests  of  the  house  of  Aaron,  cannot  have  had 
practical  currency  and  recognition  in  the  Northern  King- 
dom. The  priests  could  not  have  stultified  themselves 
by  accepting  the  authority  of  a  code  according  to  which 
their  whole  worship  was  schismatic  ;  nor  can  the  code 
have  been  the  basis  of  popular  faith  or  prophetic  doc- 
trine, since  Elijah  and  Elisha  had  no  quarrel  with  tlie 
sanctuaries  of  their  nation.  Hosea  himself,  in  his  bitter 
complaints  against  the  priests,  never  upbraids  them  as 
schismatic  usurpers  of  an  illegitimate  authority,  but 
speaks  of  them  as  men  who  had  proved  untrue  to  a 
legitimate  and  lofty  office.  The  same  argument  proves 
that  the  code  of  Deuteronomy  was  unknown,  for  it  also 
treats  all  the  northern  sanctuaries  as  schismatic  and 
heathenish,  acknowledging  but  one  place  of  lawful 
pilgrimage  for  all  the  seed  of  Jacob,  It  is  safe,  there- 
fore, to  conclude  that  whatever  ancient  laws  may  have 
had  currency  in  a  written  form  must  be  sought  in  other 
parts  of  the  Pentateuch,  particularly  in  the  Book  of 
the  Covenant,  Exod.  xxi.-xxiii.,  M^hich  the  Pentateuch 
itself  presents  as  an  older  code  than  those  of  Deutero- 
nomy and  the  Levitical  Legislation.  In  fact,  the 
ordinances  of  this  code  closely  correspond  with  the 
indications  as  to  the  ancient  laws  of  Israel  supplied  by 
the  older  history  and  the  prophets.  Quite  similar, 
except  in  some  minor  details  which  need  not  now 
delay  us,  is  another  ancient  table  of  laws  preserved  in 
Exod.  xxxiv.     These  two  documents  mav  be  taken  as 


^ 


114  THE  OLDEST  LA  WS  lect.  hi. 

representing  the  general  system  of  sacred  law  which 
had  practical  recognition  in  the  Northern  Kingdom, 
though  the  very  fact  that  we  have  two  such  documents 
conspires  with  other  indications  to  make  it  prohable 
that  the  laws,  which  were  certainly  generally  published 
by  oral  decisions  of  the  priests,  were  better  known  by 
oral  tradition  than  by  written  books.  ISTeither  Amos 
nor  Hosea  alludes  to  an  extant  written  law  (Hosea 
viii.  12  is  mistranslated  in  A.V.),  though  this  fact 
does  not  prove  that  written  laws  did  not  exist,  but  only 
that  they  had  not  the  same  prominence  as  in  later 
times. 

Jehovah,  however,  instructed  His  people  and  re- 
vealed His  character  to  them  quite  as  much  by  history 
as  by  precept,  and  the  recollection  of  His  great  deeds 
in  times  gone  by  forms  the  most  frequent  text  for  pro- 
phetic admonition.  I  have  already  remarked  that  the 
extant  historical  narratives  fall  into  several  groups, 
each  of  which  is  closely  akin  to  the  Book  of  the  Cove- 
nant, to  the  Deuteronomic  code,  or  to  the  finished  Pen- 
tateuch (or,  if  you  please,  the  Levitical  legislation) 
respectively.  In  the  Northern  Kiugdom,  where  the 
Deuteronomic  and  Levitical  legislations  had  no  recog- 
nition, it  may  safely  be  assumed  that  the  parts  of  the 
historical  books  which  are  akin  to  these,  and  judge  the 
actions  of  Israel  by  the  standard  which  they  supply, 
were  also  unknown.  This  would  exclude  those  sections 
of  the  Pentateuch  and  the  book  of  Joshua  which  are 
plainly  by  the  same  hand  as  the  Levitical  laws,  and  a 


LECT.  III.  AND  HISTORIES.  115 

considerable  number  of  passages  in  the  Deuteronomic 
style,  chiefly  comments  on  the  older  narrative  or 
speeches  composed  in  the  usual  free  manner  of  ancient 
historians,  which  are  found  here  and  there  in  the  other 
historical  books.  The  main  thread  of  the  books  of 
Kings,  as  distinguished  from  the  author's  extracts 
from  earlier  sources,  must  of  course  be  set  aside,  since 
the  history  of  Kings  goes  down  to  the  close  of  the 
Judsean  Kingdom,  and  is  written  throughout  from  the 
standpoint  of  Josiah's  reformation,  which  took  place 
long  after  the  fall  of  the  kingdom  of  Ephraim. 

It  is  important  to  indicate  these  deductions  in  a 
general  way,  but  for  our  present  purpose  it  is  imneces- 
sary  to  follow  them  out  in  detail,  because,  speaking 
broadly,  they  affect  the  interpretation  rather  than  the 
substance  of  the  history.  In  the  time  of  Amos  and 
Hosea  the  truest  hearts  and  best  thinkers  of  Israel  did 
not  yet  interpret  Jehovah's  dealings  with  His  people  in 
the  light  of  the  Deuteronomic  and  Levitical  laws  ;  they 
did  not  judge  of  Israel's  obedience  by  the  principle  of 
the  one  sanctuary  or  the  standard  of  the  Aaronic  ritual; 
but  they  had  heard  the  story  of  Jehovah's  dealings  with 
their  fathers,  and  many  of  them,  perhaps,  had  read  it  in 
books,  great  part  of  which  is  actually  incorporated  in 
our  present  Bible.  Take,  for  example,  the  history  of  the 
Northern  Kingdom  as  it  is  given  in  the  Kings.  No 
attentive  reader,  even  of  the  Ensflish  Bible,  can  fail  to 
see  that  the  substance  of  the  narrative,  all  that  gives  it 
vividness  and  colour,  belongs  to  a  quite  different  species 


116  THE  OLDEST  lect.  hi. 

of  literature  from  the  brief  chronological  epitomes  and 
theological  comments  of  the  Judsean  editor.  The  story 
of  Elijah  and  Elisha  clearly  took  shape  in  the  Northern 
Kingdom ;  it  is  told  by  a  narrator  who  is  full  of  per- 
sonal interest  in  the  affairs  of  Ephraim,  and  has  no  idea 
of  criticising  Elijah's  work,  as  the  Judsean  editor 
criticises  the  whole  history  of  the  North,  by  constant 
reference  to  the  schismatic  character  of  the  northern 
sanctuaries.  Moreover,  the  narrative  has  a  distinctly 
popular  character  ;  it  reads  like  a  story  told  by  word  of 
mouth,  full  of  the  dramatic  touches  and  vivid  presenta- 
tions of  detail  which  characterise  all  Semitic  history 
that  closely  follows  oral  narration.  The  king  of  Israel 
of  whom  we  read  in  2  Kings  viii.  4  was,  we  may  be  sure, 
not  the  only  man  who  talked  with  Gehazi,  saying,  "  Tell 
me,  I  pray  thee,  all  the  great  things  that  Elisha  hath 
done."  By  many  repetitions  the  history  of  the  prophets 
took  a  fixed  shape  long  before  it  was  committed  to 
writing,  and  the  written  record  preserves  all  the  essen- 
tial features  of  the  narratives  that  passed  from  mouth 
to  mouth,  and  were  handed  down  orally  from  father  to 
child.  The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  the  earlier 
history,  which  in  all  its  main  parts  is  evidently  the 
transcript  of  a  vivid  oral  tradition.  The  story  of  the 
patriarchs,  of  Moses,  of  the  Judges,  of  Saul,  and  of 
David  is  still  recorded  to  us  as  it  lived  in  the  mouths 
of  the  people,  and  formed  the  most  powerful  agency  of 
religious  education.  Even  the  English  reader  who  is 
unable  to  follow  the  nicer  operations  of  criticism  may 


HISTORIES.  117 


by  attentive  reading  satisfy  himself  that  all  the  Old 
Testament  stories  which  have  been  our  delight  from 
childhood  for  their  dramatic  pictorial  simplicity  belong 
to  a  different  stratum  of  thought  and  feeling  from  the 
Deuteronomic  and  Levitical  laws.  They  were  the 
spiritual  food  of  a  people  for  whom  these  laws  did  not  yet 
exist,  but  who  listened  at  every  sanctuary  to  Jehovah's 
great  and  loving  deeds,  which  had  consecrated  these 
holy  places  from  the  days  of  the  patriarchs  downwards. 
Beersheba,  Bethel,  Shechem,  Gilgal,,and  the  rest,  had 
each  its  own  chain  of  sacred  story,  and  wherever  the 
Israelites  were  gathered  together  men  might  be  heard 
"  rehearsing  the  righteous  deeds  of  Jehovah,  the  righteous 
deeds  of  His  rule  in  Israel "  (Judges  v.  11).  A  great 
part  of  the  patriarchal  history — almost  all,  indeed,  that 
has  not  reference  to  Abraham  and  Hebron — is  gathered 
in  this  way  round  northern  sanctuaries  or  round  Beer- 
sheba, which  was  a  place  of  pilgrimage  for  Northern 
Israel  (Amos  v.  5  ;  viii.  14);  and  the  special  interest 
which  the  narrative  displays  in  Eachel  and  Joseph  is 
an  additional  proof  that  we  still  read  it  very  much  as 
it  was  read  or  told  in  the  house  of  Joseph  in  the  days 
of  Amos  and  Hosea. 

There  are  two  chapters  in  the  Bible  which  can  be 
pointed  to  as  specially  instructive  for  the  way  in  which 
the  Israelites  of  the  North  thought  of  Jehovah  and  His 
reign  in  Israel.  One  of  these  is  the  so-called  blessing 
of  Moses  in  .Deut.  xxxiii.,  which  plainly  belongs  to  the 
Northern  Kingdom,  because  it  speaks  of  Joseph  as  the 


118  THE  BLESSING  lect.  hi. 

crowned  one  of  Lis  brethren  (ver.  16  ;  A.V.  scimrated 
from  his  hrethren),  and  prays  for  the  reunion  of  Judah 
to  the  rest  of  Israel  (ver.  7).  The  other  is  Josh,  xxiv., 
a  narrative  connected  with  Shechem,  which  speaks 
without  offence  of  the  sacred  tree  and  sacred  stone  that 
marked  this  great  northern  sanctuary,  and  is  therefore 
quite  ignorant  of  the  Deuterononiic  law.  The  chapter 
gives  a  TSsmn6  of  the  history  of  Israel  and  the  patriarchs 
in  the  mouth  of  Joshua,  which  is  in  fact  the  closing 
summary  of  a  great  historical  book,  known  as  the 
Elohistic  history,  to  which  large  parts  of  the  Penta- 
teuchai  narrative  are  referred  by  critics  ;  and  taken  with 
the  Blessing  of  Moses  it  shows  us  better  than  any  other 
part  of  Scripture  how  thoughtful  and  godly  men  of  the 
Northern  Kingdom  understood  the  religion  of  Jehovah 
though  they  knew  nothing  of  the  greater  Pentateuch al 
codes.  In  the  Blessing  of  Moses  the  religion  of  Israel 
is  described  in  a  tone  of  joyous  and  hopeful  trust — the 
glory  of  Jehovah  when  He  shined  forth  from  Paran  and 
came  to  Kadesh  full  of  love  for  His  people,  the  gift  of 
the  law  through  Moses  as  a  possession  for  the  congrega- 
tion of  Jacob,  the  final  establishment  of  the  state  when 
there  was  a  king  in  Jeshurun  uniting  the  branches  of 
the  people,  and  knitting  the  tribes  of  Israel  together 
(ver.  5).  The  priesthood  is  still  revered  as  the  arbiter 
of  impartial  divine  justice.  The  tribes  are  not  all 
prosperous  alike  ;  Simeon  has  already  disappeared  from 
the  roll,  and  Eeuben  seems  threatened  with  extinction  ; 
but  the  princely  house  of  Joseph  is  strong  and  victorious, 


OF  MOSES.  119 


and  roimd  the  thousands  of  Manasseh  and  the  myriads 
of  Ephraim  the  other  tribes  still  rally  strong  in  Jehovah's 
favour.  "  There  is  none  like  unto  the  God  of  Jeshurun, 
who  rides  on  the  heavens  for  thy  help,  and  in  His 
loftiness  on  the  skies.  The  God  of  old  is  thy  refuge 
rand  the  outspreading  of  the  everlasting  arms ;  He 
drives  out  the  enemy  before  thee,  and  saith.  Destroy. 
Then  Israel  dwells  secure  ;  the  fountain  of  Jacob  flows 
unmixed  in  a  land  of  corn  and  wine,  where  the  heavens 
drop  down  dew.  Happy  art  thou,  0  Israel ;  wlio  is  like 
unto  thee,  a  people  victorious  in  Jehovah,  whose  help 
is  the  shield,  whose  pride  is  the  sword,  and  thy  foes 
feign  before  thee,  and  thou  marchest  over  their  high 
places."  ^  This  is  still  the  old  warlike  Israel,  secure  in 
the  help  of  the  God  of  heaven,  whose  presence  is  alike 
near  in  the  day  of  battle  and  in  the  administration  of  a 
righteous  law.  In  Josh.  xxiv.  the  picture  has  another 
side.  The  God  who  has  done  these  great  things  for 
Israel  is  a  holy  and  a  jealous  God ;  He  will  not  forgive 
His  people's  sins.  It  is  no  easy  thing  to  serve  such  a 
God,  for  He  must  be  served  with  single  heart.  The 
danger  of  departing  from  Him  lies  in  two  directions. 
On  one  hand  Israel  is  tempted  to  fall  back  into  the 
ancient  heathenism  of  its  Aramaean  ancestors  (vers. 
2,  15);  on  the  other  hand  it  is  drawn  away  by  the  gods 
of  the  Amorites.  Such  were,  in  fact,  the  two  great 
influences  with  which  the  religion  of  Jehovah  had  to 
contend  through  all  the  history  of  Israel,  {ind  both  had 
a  strange  attraction,  for  they  made  no  such  demands  on 


120  AMOS  OF  LECT.  III. 

tlieir  worshippers  as  the  holy  and  jealous  Jehovah. 
"  Ye  cannot  serve  Jehovah,  for  He  will  not  forgive  your 
sins  ;  if  ye  forsake  Him  and  serve  foreign  gods,  then  He 
will  turn  and  do  you  hurt,  and  consume  you  after  He 
hath  done  you  good."  These  words  might  serve  as  the 
epitaph  of  the  Hebrew  state  in  the  destruction  towards 
which  it  was  hastening  in  the  last  days  of  the  house  of 
Jehu,  and  with  them  the  history  of  Israel  might  have 
closed,  but  for  the  work  of  a  new  series  of  prophets, 
which  built  up  another  Israel  on  the  ruins  of  the  old 
kingdom.  The  founder  of  this  new  type  of  prophecy 
is  Amos,  the  herdsman  of  Tekoa.^ 

^  The  first  appearance  of  Amos  as  a  prophet  is  one 
of  the  most  striking  scenes  of  Old  Testament  history. 
His  prophecy  is  almost  wholly  addressed  to  Northern 
Israel,  and  the  scene  of  liis  public  preaching  was  the 
great  royal  sanctuary  of  Bethel,  the  chief  gathering- 
point  of  the  worshippers  of  Ephraim.-  But  he  appeared 
in  Bethel  as  a  stranger,  and  had  nothing  in  common 
with  the  prophetic  guild  which  had  long  had  its  seat 
there.  His  home  was  in  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  not  in 
any  of  the  great  centres  of  life,  but  in  the  little  town  of 
Tekoa,^^  which  lies  some  six  miles  south  of  Bethlehem 
on  an  elevated  hill,  from  which  the  eye  ranges  north- 
ward to  Bethlehem  and  the  Mount  of  Olives,  while 
eastward  the  prospect  extends  over  rugged  and  desolate 
mountains,  through  the  clefts  of  which  the  Dead  Sea 
is  visible,  with  the  lofty  tableland  of  Moab  in  the  far 
distance.     Though  it  stands  on  the  very  edge  of  the 


LECT.  III.  TEKOA.  121 

great  wilderness,  the  spot  itself  is  fruitful,  and  pleasant 
to  the  eye.  Its  oil,  according  to  the  Mishna,  was  the 
best  in  the  land  {}len.  viii.  3),  and  in  the  middle  ages 
its  honey  passed  into  a  proverb  (Yakut  s.-y.).  But 
immediately  beyond  Tekoa  all  agriculture  ceases,  and 
the  desert  hills  between  it  and  the  Dead  Sea  offer  only 
a  scanty  subsistence  to  wandering  flocks.  Amos  him- 
self was  not  a  husbandman,  but  "a  shepherd  and  a 
gatherer  of  sycamore  figs"  (vii.  14  sc^.),  the  coarsest 
and  least  desirable  of  the  fruits  of  Canaan.  He  was 
nurtured  in  austere  simplicity,  and  it  was  in  the  vast 
solitudes  where  he  followed  his  flock  that  Jehovah 
said  to  him,  "Go  prophesy  to  my  people  Israel."  It 
was  a  strange  errand  for  the  unknown  shepherd  to 
undertake ;  for  the  prophet  was  not  a  preacher  in  the 
modern  sense,  whose  words  are  addressed  to  the  heart 
of  the  individual,  and  who  can  discharge  his  function 
wherever  he  can  find  an  audience  willing  to  hear  a 
gospel  that  speaks  to  the  poor  as  well  as  to  the  great. 
Jehovah's  word  was  a  message  to  the  nation,  and  above 
all  to  the  grandees  and  princes  who  were  directly 
responsible  for  the  welfare  and  good  estate  of  Israel. 
But  the  summons  of  Jehovah  left  no  room  for  hesita- 
tion. ''  The  Lord  roareth  from  Zion,  and  sendeth  forth 
His  voice  from  Jerusalem,  and  the  pastures  of  the 
shepherds  mourn,  and  the  top  of  Carmel  wdthereth.  .  .  . 
Shall  a  trumpet  be  blown  in  the  city,  and  the  people 
not  be  afraid  ?  shall  there  be  evil  in  the  city  and 
Jehovah  hath  not  done  it  ?     Surely  the  Lord  Jehovah 


122  AMOS  AT  lect.  hi. 

will  not  do  anything,  but  He  revealeth  His  secret  to  His 
servants  the  prophets.  The  lion  hath  roared,  who  will 
not  fear  ?  the  Lord  Jehovah  hath  spoken,  who  can  but 
prophesy  ?"  (i.  2  ;  iii.  6-8).  The  call  of  Amos  lay  in 
the  consciousness  that  he  had  heard  the  voice  of  Jehovah 
thundering  forth  judgment  while  all  around  were  deaf 
to  the  sound.  In  this  voice  he  had  learned  Jehova,h's 
secret — not  some  abstract  theological  truth,  but  the 
secret  of  His  dealings  with  Israel  and  the  surrounding 
nations.  Such  a  secret  could  not  remain  locked  up 
within  his  breast — "the  Lord  Jehovah  hath  spoken, 
who  can  but  prophesy  ?"  And  so  the  shepherd  left  his 
flock  in  the  wilderness,  and,  armed  with  no  other  cre- 
dentials than  the  word  that  burned  within  him,  stood 
forth  in  the  midst  of  the  brilliant  crowd  that  thronged 
the  royal  sanctuary  of  Bethel,  to  proclaim  what  Jehovah 
had  spoken  against  the  children  of  Israel  (iii.  1). 

Before  we  examine  more  fully  the  contents  of  this 
word,  it  will  be  convenient  to  complete  the  brief  record 
of  the  prophet's  history  as  it  is  given  in  the  seventh 
chapter  of  his  book.  Amos  had  many  things  to  say  to 
the  nation  and  its  rulers,  but  they  all  issued  in  the 
announcement  of  swift  impending  judgment.  The  sum 
of  his  prophecy  was  a  death -wail  over  the  house  of 
Israel : — 

The  virgin  of  Israel  is  fallen,  she  cannot  rise  again  : 
She  is  cast  clown  upon  her  land,  there  is  none  to  raise  her  tip. 

(V.  2.) 

This  judgment  is  the  work  of  Jehovah,  and  its  cause  is 


LECT.  III.  BETHEL.  123 

Israel's  sin.  "You  only  have  I  known  of  all  the 
families  of  the  earth  ;  therefore  will  I  punish  you  for 
all  your  iniquities."  In  the  characteristic  manner  of 
Eastern  symbolism,  Amos  expressed  these  thoughts  in 
a  figure.  He  saw  Jehovah  standing  over  a  waU  with  a 
plumb-line  in  His  hand.  Jehovah  is  a  builder,  the  fate 
of  nations  is  His  work,  and,  like  a  good  builder.  He  works 
by  rule  and  measure.  And  now  the  great  builder  speaks, 
saying,  "  Behold  I  set  the  plumb-line — the  rule  of  divine 
righteousness — in  the  midst  of  Israel ;  I  will  not  pass 
them  by  any  more  ;  and  the  high  places  of  Isaac  shall 
be  desolate,  and  the  sanctuaries  of  Israel  shall  be  laid 
waste,,  and  I  will  rise  against  the  house  of  Jeroboam 
with  the  sword."  However  little  the  audience  under- 
stood of  the  prophet's  harangue,  the  last  words  were 
intelligible  enough.  It  was  not  the  first  time  that  a 
prophet  had  foretold  the  fall  of  a  northern  dynasty  ; 
the  conspiracy  that  set  Jeroboam's  ancestor  on  the 
throne  received  its  first  impulse  from  Elijah's  sentence 
on  the  murderer  of  iJ^aboth  (2  Kings  ix.  25  se^.).  The 
priest  Amaziah,  who  was  responsible  for  the  order  of  his 
sanctuary,  at  once  took  alarm,  and  sent  to  the  king  the 
report  of  what  he  concluded  to  be  a  new  conspiracy. 
"  Amos,"  he  said,  "  hath  conspired  against  thee  in  the 
midst  of  the  house  of  Israel ;  the  land  cannot  bear  all  his 
words."  The  audacious  speaker  must  be  silenced,  but 
usage  and  the  traditional  privilege  of  the  prophets  made 
the  priest  reluctant  to  use  force  against  one  who  spoke 
in  the  name  of  Jehovah.     The  great  man  seems,  in  fact, 


124  AAIOS  AND  lect.  hi. 

to  have  looked  on  the  Judiean  intruder  with  something 
of  the  same  contempt  which  the  captains  of  the  host  at 
Eamoth  Gilead  felt  for  the  "madman"  that  brought 
Elisha's  message  to  Jehu  (2  Kings  ix.  11) ;  the  freedom 
allowed  to  the  prophets  was  in  good  measure  due  to  the 
conviction  that  they  could  do  little  harm  unless  they 
had  stronger  influences  at  their  back.  "  Get  thee  hence, 
0  seer,"  he  says, ''  flee  into  the  land  of  Judah,  and  there 
earn  thy  bread,  and  prophesy  there.-^^  But  prophesy  no 
more  in  Bethel,  for  it  is  a  royal  sanctuary  and  a  royal 
residence."  To  Amaziah  Amos  seemed  haK  an  intriguer, 
half  a  fanatic — a  man  whose  prophesying  was  a  trade, 
and  who  had  made  a  bold  stroke  for  notoriety  in  the 
hope,  perhaps,  that  the  Court  would  buy  him  off.  ISTay, 
says  Amos,  "  I  am  no  prophet,  nor  a  son  of  the  prophets 
[that  is,  no  prophet  by  trade  like  the  Nehiim  of  Bethel]  . . . 
Jehovah  took  me  as  I  followed  the  flock,  and  Jehovah 
said  to  me,  Go  prophesy  against  my  people  Israel.  Now, 
therefore,  hear  thou  the  word  of  Jehovah.  Thou  sayest. 
Prophesy  not  against  Israel,  and  preach  not  against  the 
house  of  Isaac.  Therefore,  thus  saith  Jehovah,  thy  wife 
shall  be  prostituted  in  the  city,  and  thy  sons  and  thy 
daughters  shall  fall  by  the  sword,  and  thy  land  shall  be 
divided  by  the  line  ;  and  thou  shalt  die  in  an  unclean 
land,  and  Israel  shall  surely  go  into  captivity  forth  of 
his  land."  The  judgment  denounced  on  Amaziah  com- 
prehends only  the  usual  incidents  of  the  sack  of  a  city 
in  those  barbarous  times  ;  and  Amos,  it  is  plain,  does 
not  hurl  a  special  threat  against  the  priest,  but  merely 


LECT.  III.  AMAZIAH.  125 

repeats  his  former  prediction  of  the  fall  of  the  nation 
before  the  invader,  witli  the  assurance  that  Amaziah 
shall  live  to  see  it  accomplished.  To  so  precise  an 
intimation  there  was  nothing  to  add.  Amos,  no  doubt, 
was  compelled  to  yield  at  once  to  superior  force  ;  and 
the  fact  that  his  book,  as  we  possess  it,  is  a  carefully 
planned  composition,  in  which  this  historical  incident 
holds  the  central  place,  followed  as  well  as  preceded 
by  prophecies,  shows  that  he  effected  his  escape,  retiring 
no  doubt  to  Judah,  where  he  placed  on  permanent 
record  the  words  of  Jehovah  which  the  house  of  Israel 
refused  to  heed.  As  his  prophesying  was  not  a  pro- 
fession, he  had  not  ceased  to  be  a  shepherd  in  fulfilling 
his  divine  mission  ;  and,  though  the  mediaeval  Jewish 
tradition  which  showed  his  grave  at  Tekoa  was  certainly 
apocryphal,  it  may  be  presumed  that  he  returned  to  his 
old  life,  and  died  in  his  native  place. 

The  humble  condition  of  a  shepherd  following  his 
flock  on  the  bare  mountains  of  Tekoa  has  tempted 
many  commentators,  from  Jerome  downwards,  to  think 
of  Amos  as  an  unlettered  clown,  and  to  trace  his  "rus- 
ticity "  in  the  language  of  his  book.  To  the  unprejudiced 
judgment,  however,  the  prophecy  of  Amos  appears  one 
of  the  best  examples  of  pure  Hebrew  style.  The  lan- 
guage, the  images,  the  grouping  are  alike  admirable  ; 
and  the  simplicity  of  the  diction,  obscured  only  in  one 
or  two  passages  by  the  fault  of  transcribers  (iv.  3  ;  ix. 
1),^^  is  a  token,  not  of  rusticity,  but  of  perfect  mastery 
over  a  language  which,  though  unfit  for  the  expression 


126  THE  STYLE  lect.  hi. 

of  abstract  ideas,  is  unsurpassed  as  a  veliicle  for  im- 
passioned speech.  To  associate  inferior  culture  with 
the  simplicity  and  poverty  of  pastoral  life  is  totally 
to  mistake  the  conditions  of  Eastern  society.  At  the 
courts  of  the  Caliphs  and  their  Emirs  the  rude  Arabs  of 
the  desert  were  wont  to  appear  without  any  feeling  of 
awkwardness,  and  to  surprise  the  courtiers  by  the  finish 
of  their  impromptu  verses,  the  fluent  eloquence  of  their 
oratory,  and  the  range  of  subjects  on  which  they  could 
speak  with  knowledge  and  discrimination.^^  Among 
the  Hebrews,  as  in  the  Arabian  desert,  knowledge  and 
oratory  were  not  affairs  of  professional  education,  or 
dependent  for  their  cultivation  on  wealth  and  social 
status.  The  sum  of  book  learning  was  small ;  men  of 
all  ranks  mingled  with  that  Oriental  freedom  which  is  so 
foreign  to  our  habits  ;  shrewd  observation,  a  memory 
retentive  of  traditional  lore,  and  the  faculty  of  original 
reflection  took  the  place  of  laborious  study  as  the  ground 
of  acknowledged  intellectual  pre-eminence.  In  Hebrew, 
as  in  Arabic,  the  best  writing  is  an  unaffected  transcript 
of  the  best  speaking  ;  the  literary  merit  of  the  book  of 
Genesis,  or  the  history  of  Elijah,  like  that  of  the  KitCib 
el  Aghdny,  or  of  the  Norse  Sagas,  is  that  they  read 
as  if  they  were  told  by  word  of  mouth  ;  and,  in  like 
manner,  the  prophecies  of  Amos,  though  evidently  re- 
arranged for  publication,  and  probably  shortened  from 
their  original  spoken  form,  are  excellent  writing,  because 
the  prophet  writes  as  he  spoke,  preserving  all  the  effects 
of  pointed  and  dramatic  delivery,  with  that  breath  of 


LECT.  III.  OF  AMOS.  Vll 

lyrical  fervour  which  lends  a  special  charm  to  the 
highest  Hebrew  oratory.  Semitic  authorship  never 
becomes  self-conscious  without  losing  its  highest  quali- 
ties, the  old  dramatic  and  lyric  power  gives  way  to 
artificial  conceits  and  affected  obscurities.  Ezekiel  is 
much  more  of  a  bookman  than  Amos,  but  his  style  is 
as  much  below  that  of  the  shepherd  of  Tekoa  as  the 
rhetorical  prose  of  the  later  Arabs  is  below  the  simplicity 
of  the  ancient  legends  of  the  desert. 

The  writings  of  Amos,  however,  are  not  more  con- 
spicuous for  literary  merit  than  for  width  of  human 
interest  based  on  a  range  of  historical  observation  very 
remarkable  in  the  age  and  condition  of  the  autlior. 
There  is  nothing  provincial  about  our  prophet ;  his 
vision  embraces  all  the  nations  with  whom  the  Hebrews 
had  any  converse  ;  he  knows  their  history  and  geography 
with  surprising  exactness,  and  is,  in  fact,  our  only 
source  for  several  particulars  of  great  value  to  the  his- 
torian of  Semitic  antiquity.  The  rapid  survey  of  the 
nations  immediately  bordering  on  Israel — Aram  -  Da- 
mascus, Philistia,Edom,  Amnion,  Moab — is  full  of  precise 
detail  as  to  localities  and  events,  with  a  keen  appreci- 
ation of  national  character.  He  tells  how  the  Philis- 
tines migrated  from  Caphtor,  the  Aramaeans  from  Kir 
(ix.  7).  His  eye  ranges  southward  along  the  caravan 
route  from  Gaza  through  the  Arabian  wilderness  (i.  6), 
to  the  tropical  lands  of  the  Cushites  (ix.  7).  In  the  west 
he  is  faniiliar  with  the  marvels  of  the  swelling  of  the 
Nile  (viii.  8  ;  ix.  5),  and  in  the  distant  Babylonian  east 


128  WIDE  KNOWLEDGE  lect.  iii. 

he  makes  special  mention  of  the  city  of  Cahieh  (vi.  2, 
comp.  Gen.  x.  10).  His  acquaintance  with  the  condition 
of  Northern  Israel  is  not  that  of  a  mere  passing  observer. 
He  has  followed  with  close  and  sympathetic  attention 
the  progress  of  the  Syrian  wars  (i.  3,  13  ;  iv.  10),  and 
all  the  sufferings  of  the  nation  from  pestilence,  famine, 
and  earthquake  (chap.  iv.).  The  luxury  of  the  nobles  of 
Samaria  (vi.  3  seq}),  the  cruel  sensuality  of  their  wives  (iv. 
1  se^.),  the  miseries  of  the  poor,  and  the  rapacity  of  their 
tyrants  (iii.  6  seq^. ;  viii.  4  seq),  the  pilgrimages  to  Gil  gal 
and  Beersheba  (v.  5  ;  viii.  14),  are  painted  from  the  life,  as 
well  as  the  ritual  splendour  and  moral  abominations  of 
the  sanctuary  of  Bethel.  It  is  obviously  illegitimate 
to  ascribe  this  fulness  of  knowledge  to  special  revela- 
tion ;  Amos,  we  may  justly  conclude,  was  an  observer 
of  social  and  political  life  before  he  was  a  prophet,  and 
his  prophetic  calling  gave  scope  and  use  to  his  natural 
acquirements.  The  source  of  Amos's  knowledge  of 
nations  and  their  affairs  is  of  secondary  consequence, 
but  the  critic  will  observe  that  his  geographical  horizon 
corresponds  with  those  parts  of  Genesis  x.  which 
may  plausibly  be  assigned  to  that  oldest  stratum  of 
the  Pentateuchal  narrative  which  we  have  already 
spoken  of  as  substantially  representing  the  historical 
traditions  of  Israel  at  the  time  when  he  lived.^^  The 
exact  details  wiiich  he  possesses  as  to  Israel  and  im- 
mediately surrounding  districts  point  rather  to  personal 
observation  ;  but  long  journeys  are  easy  to  one  bred  in 
the  frugality  of  the  wilderness,  and  either  on  military 


LECT.  III.  OF  AMOS.  129 

duty,  sucli  as  all  Hebrews  were  liable  to,  or  in  the 
service  of  trading  caravans,  tlie  shepherd  of  Tekoa 
might  naturally  have  found  occasion  to  wander  far 
from  his  home. 

The  prophetic  work  of  Amos,  forming,  as  it  does,  a 
mere  episode  in  an  obscure  life,  is  sharply  distinguished, 
not  only  from  the  professional  activity  of  the  prophetic 
guilds  which  lived  by  their  trade,  but  from  the  lifelong 
vocation  of  men  like  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  who  received 
the  divine  call  in  their  youth,  and  continued  their  work 
for  many  years,  receiving  new  revelations  from  time  to 
time  in  connection  with  the  changing  events  among 
which  they  lived.  Amos  is  a- man  of  one  prophecy. 
Once  for  all  he  has  heard  the  thunder  of  Jehovah's 
shout,  and  seen  the  fair  land  of  Canaan  wither  before 
it.  The  roar  of  the  lion,  to  which  he  compares  the  voice 
that  compelled  him  to  prophecy,  is  the  roar  with  which 
the  beast  springs  upon  its  prey  (comp.  iii.  8  with  iii.  4) ; 
it  is  not  Israel's  sin  that  brings  him  forward  as  a 
preacher  of  repentance  ;  but  the  sound  of  near  destruc- 
tion encircling  the  land  (iii.  11)  constrains  him  to  blow 
the  alarm  (iii.  6),  and  stir  from  their  vain  security  the 
careless  rioters  who  feel  no  concern  for  the  ruin  of 
Joseph  (vi.  1  sc^.). 

We  have  seen  from  the  words  he  addressed  to 
Amaziah  that  Amos  looked  for  the  fall  of  Israel  before 
its  enemies  within  his  own  generation  ;  in  the  figure  of 
the  roar  of  the  lion,  which  is  silent  till  it  makes  its 
spring,  he  seems  to  imply  that  the  destroying  power 
7 


130  PROPHECY  OF  lect.  hi. 

was  already  in  motion.  What  this  power  was  Amos 
expresses  with  the  precision  of  a  man  who  is  not  dealing 
with  vague  threats  of  judgment,  but  has  the  destroyer 
clearly  before  his  eyes.  "  Behold,  I  raise  up  against  you 
a  nation,  0  house  of  Israel,  and  they  shall  crush  you 
from  the  frontier  of  Hamath "  on  the  north  "  to  the 
brook  of  the  Arabah,"  or  brook  of  willows,  a  stream 
flowing  into  the  Dead  Sea,  which  separated  Jeroboam's 
tributary  Moab  from  the  Edomites  (vi.  14  ;  comp.  Isa. 
XV.  7).  The  seat  of  the  invader  is  beyond  Damascus, 
and  thither  Israel  shall  be  carried  captive  (v.  27).  It 
is  plain,  therefore,  that  Amos  has  Assyria  in  his  mind, 
thous^h  he  never  mentio-ns  the  name.  It  is  no  unknown 
danger  that  he  foresees  ;  Assyria  was  fully  within  the 
range  of  his  political  horizon ;  it  was  tlie  power  that 
had  shattered  Damascus  by  successive  campaigns  fol- 
lowing at  intervals  since  the  days  of  Jehu,  of  which 
there  is  still  some  record  on  the  monuments,  one  of 
them  being  dated  B.C.  773,  not  long  before  the  time 
when,  so  far  as  we  can  gather  from  the  defective  chron- 
ology of  2  Kings,  Amos  may  be  supposed  to  have 
preached  at  Bethel.  When  the  power  of  Damascus  was 
broken,  there  was  no  barrier  between  Assyria  and  the 
nations  of  Palestine  ;  in  fact,  the  breathing  space  that 
made  it  possible  for  Jeroboam  11.  to  restore  the  old 
borders  of  his  kingdom  was  only  granted  because  the 
Assyrians  were  occupied  for  a  time  in  other  directions, 
and  apparently  passed  through  a  period  of  intestine  dis- 
turbance which  terminated  with  the  accession  of  Tiglath 


LECT.  III.  THE  ASSYRIANS.  131 

Pileser  II.  (b.c.  745).  The  danger,  therefore,  was  visible 
to  the  most  ordinary  political  insight,  and  what  requires 
explanation  is  not  so  much  that  Amos  was  aware  of  it 
as  that  the  rulers  and  people  of  Israel  were  so  utterly 
blind  to  the  impending  doom.  The  explanation,  how- 
ever, is  very  clearly  given  by  Amos  himself  Tlie  source 
of  the  judicial  blindness  of  his  nation  was  want  of  know- 
ledge of  the  true  character  of  Jehovah,  encouraging  a 
false  estimate  of  their  own  might.  The  old  martial 
spirit  of  Israel  had  not  died,  and  it  had  not  lost  its 
connection  with  religious  faith  and  the  inspiriting  words 
of  the  prophets  of  the  old  school.  Elisha  was  remem- 
bered as  the  best  strength  of  the  nation  in  the  Syrian 
wars — "  the  chariots  and  horsemen  of  Israel "  (2  Kings 
xiii.  14).  The  deliverance  from  Damascus  was  "  Jeho- 
vah's victory "  {ihid.  ver.  17),  and  more  recently  the 
subjugation  of  Moab  had  been  undertaken  in  accordance 
with  the  prophecy  of  Jonah.  Never  had  Jehovah  been 
more  visibly  on  the  side  of  His  people.  His  worship 
was  carried  on  with  assiduous  alacrity  by  a  grateful 
nation.  Sacrifices,  tithes,  thank-offerings,  spontaneous 
oblations,  streamed  into  the  sanctuaries  (Amos  iv.  4  sc^.). 
There  was  no  question  as  to  the  stability  of  the  newly- 
won  prosperity,  or  the  military  power  of  the  state  (vi. 
13).  Israel  was  once  more  the  nation  victorious  in 
Jehovah,  whose  help  was  the  shield,  whose  pride  was 
the  sword  (Deut.  xxxiii.  29).  Everything  indeed  was 
not  yet  accomplished,  but  the  day  of  Jehovah's  crown- 
ing victory  was  doubtless  near  at  hand,  and  nothing 


132  AAIOS'S  CONCEPT/ON  lect.  hi. 

remained  but  to  pray  for  its  speedy  coming  (Amos 
V.  18).!^ 

We  see,  then,  that  it  was  not  political  blindness  or 
religious  indifference,  but  a  profound  and  fanatical  faith, 
that  made  Israel  insensible  to  the  danger  so  plainly 
looming  on  the  horizon.  Their  trust  in  Jehovah's 
onniipotence  was  absolute,  and  absolute  in  a  sense 
determined  by  the  work  of  Elijah.  There  was  no 
longer  any  disposition  to  dally  with  foreign  gods.  There 
was  none  like  unto  the  God  of  Jeshurun,  who  rode  on 
the  heavens  for  His  people's  help.  That  that  help 
could  be  refused,  that  the  day  of  Jehovah  could  be 
darkness  and  not  light,  as  Amos  preached,  that  the 
distant  thunder-roll  of  the  advance  of  Assyria  was  the 
voice  of  an  angry  God  drawing  nigh  to  judge  His  people, 
were  to  them  impossibilities. 

Amos  took  a  juster  view  of  the  political  situation, 
because  he  had  other  thoughts  of  the  purpose  and 
character  of  Jehovah.  In  spite  of  their  lofty  concep- 
tions of  the  majesty  and  victorious  sovereignty  of 
Jehovah,  the  mass  of  the  people  still  thought  of  Him 
as  exclusively  concerned  with  the  affairs  of  Israel. 
Jehovah  had  no  otlier  business  on  earth  than  to  watch 
over  His  own  nation.  In  giving  victory  and  prosperity 
to  Israel  He  was  upholding  His  own  interests,  which 
ultimately  centred  in  the  maintenance  of  His  dignity 
as  a  potentate  feared  by  foreigners  and  holding  splendid 
court  at  the  sanctuaries  where  He  received  Israel's 
homage.     This  seems  to  us  an  extraordinary  limitation 


LECT.  III.  OF  JEHOVAH.  133 

of  view  on  the  part  of  men  who  recognised  Jehovah  as 
the  Creator.  But,  in  fact,  heathen  nations  like  the 
Assyrians  and  Phoenicians  had  also  developed  a  doctrine 
of  creation  without  ceasing  to  believe  in  strictly  national 
deities.  Jehovah,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  not  first 
the  Creator  and  then  the  God  of  Israel.  His  relation  to 
Israel  was  the  historical  foundation  of  the  religion  of 
the  Hebrews,  and  continued  to  be  the  central  idea  in  all 
practical  developments  of  their  faith.  To  Amos,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  doctrine  of  creation  is  full  of  practical 
meaning.  ''  He  that  formed  the  mountains  and  created 
the  wind,  that  declareth  unto  man  what  is  His  thought, 
that  maketh  the  morning  darkness  and  treadeth  on  the 
high  places  of  the  earth,  Jehovah,  the  God  of  hosts  is 
His  name "  (iv.  13).  This  supreme  God  cannot  be 
thought  of  as  having  no  interest  or  purpose  beyond 
Israel.  It  was  He  that  brought  Israel  out  of  Egypt, 
but  it  was  He  too  who  brought  the  Philistines  from 
Caphtor  and  the  Aramaeans  from  Kir  (ix.  7).  Every 
movement  of  history  is  Jehovah's  work  ;  it  is  not 
Asshur  but  Jehovah  who  has  created  the  Assyrian 
empire,  and  He  has  a  j)nrpose  of  His  own  in  raising  up 
its  vast  overwhelming  strength  and  suspending  it  as  a 
threat  of  imminent  destruction  over  Israel  and  the  sur- 
rounding nations.  To  Amos,  therefore,  the  question  is 
not  what  Jehovah  as  King  of  Israel  will  do  for  His 
people  against  the  Assyrian,  but  what  the  Sovereign  of 
the  World  designs  to  effect  by  the  terrible  instrument 
which  He  has  created.     The  answer  to  this  question  is 


134  THE  SINS  OF 


the  "  secret  of  Jeliovali,"  known  only  to  Himself  and 
His  prophet ;  and  the  key  to  the  secret  is  Jehovah's 
righteousness,  and  the  sins,  not  of  Israel  alone,  but  of  the 
whole  circle  of  nations  from  Damascus  to  Philistia,  which 
the  advance  of  Assyria  directly  threatens.  In  the  first 
section  of  his  book  Amos  surveys  each  of  these  nations 
in  succession,  but  in  none  does  he  find  any  ground  to 
think  that  Jehovah  will  divert  the  near  calamity.  The 
doom  is  pronounced  on  each  in  the  same  solemn  for- 
mula :  "  Tor  three  transgressions  of  Damascus  and  for 
four" — that  is,  according  to  Hebrew  idiom,  for  the  multi- 
plied transgressions  of  Damascus — "  I  will  not  turn  it 
aside."  The  "  it "  is  a  transparent  aposiopesis,  for  the 
picture  of  the  terrible  Assyrian  is  constantly  before  the 
prophet's  eyes. 

JSTow,  it  is  plain  that  the  sins  for  which  Damascus, 
Amnion,  Moab,  and  the  rest  are  judged  cannot  be 
offences  against  Jehovah  as  the  national  God  of  Israel. 
Amos  teaches  that  heathen  nations  are  to  be  judged,  not 
because  they  do  not  worship  Israel's  God,  but  because 
they  have  broken  the  laws  of  universal  morality.  The 
crime  of  Damascus  and  Ammon  is  their  inhuman  treat- 
ment of  the  Gileadites  ;  the  Phoenicians  and  Philistines 
are  condemned  for  the  barbarous  slave-trade,  fed  by 
kidnapping  expeditions,  of  which  Tyre  and  Gaza  were 
the  emporia.  In  the  case  of  Tyre  this  offence  is  aggra- 
vated by  the  fact  that  the  captives  were  carried  off  in 
defiance  of  the  ancient  brotherly  alliance  between  Israel 
and  the  Phoenician  city  ;  and  in  like  manner  the  sin  of 


LECT.  III.  THE  NATIONS.  135 

Edom  is  the  unrelenting  blood- feud  ^vith  which  he 
follows  his  brother  of  Judah.  These  are  the  common 
barbarities  and  treacheries  of  Semitic  warfare  ;  and  it 
is  as  sucli  that  tliey  are  condemned,  and  not  simply 
because  in  each  case  it  is  Israel  that  has  suffered  from 
them.  Moab  is  equally  condemned  for  a  sin  that  has 
nothincj  to  do  with  Israel,  but  was  a  breach  of  the  most 
sacred  feelings  of  ancient  piety — the  violation  of  tlie 
bones  of  the  king  of  Edom.^^ 

As  Amos  teaches  that  Jehovah's  wrath  falls  on  the 
heathen  nations,  not  because  they  are  heathen  and  do 
not  worship  Ilim,  but  because  they  have  broken  the 
universal  laws  of  fidelity,  kinship,  and  humanity,  so  He 
teaches  that  Israel  must  be  judged  and  condemned  by  the 
same  laws  in  spite  of  its  assiduous  Jehovah  worship. 
The  sinners  of  Israel  thought  they  had  a  special  security 
in.  their  national  relation  to  Jehovah,  in  the  fact  that  He 
was  worshipped  only  in  their  sanctuaries.  Nay,  says 
Amos,  He  will  make  no  difference  between  you  and 
the  children  of  tlie  Cushites,  the  remotest  denizens  of 
the  habitable  world  (ix.  7).  Jehovah  is  the  high  judge 
of  appeal  against  man's  injustice,  and  He  is  a  judge 
who  cannot  be  bribed  or  swayed  by  personal  influences 
(iii.  2).  "  I  hate,  I  despise  your  feast  days ;  I  take  no 
pleasure  in  your  solemn  assemblies.  Though  ye  offer 
me  whole  burnt-offerings  with  your  gifts  of  homage  I 
will  take  no  pleasure  in  them,  and  I  will  not  look  upon 
3^our  fatted  thank-offerings.-^'^  Take  away  from  Me  the 
noise  of  thy  songs  ;  I  will  not  hear  the  melody  of  thy 


136  THE  SINS  OF  lect.  hi. 

yiols.  But  let  justice  flow  like  waters  and  rigliteous- 
ness  as  an  unfailing  stream"  (v.  21  scq^.  Israel  is 
impartially  condemned  by  tlie  same  laws  that  condemn 
its  neighbours,  and  for  offences  patent  to  tlie  universal 
moral  judgment,  as  appears  particularly  at  iii.  9,  where 
the  grandees  of  Ashdod  and  Egypt  are  summoned 
to  appear  before  Samaria  and  bear  witness  against  the 
disorder  and  oppression  that  fill  the  city. 

We  see,  then,  that  to  Amos  the  forward  march  of 
the  Assyrian  is  a  manifestation  of  Jeliovah's  universal 
justice  on  principles  applicable  to  all  nations,  the  fall 
of  Israel  is  but  part  of  the  universal  ruin  of  the  guilty 
states  of  Palestine.  But,  though  Jehovah  in  revealing 
Himself  to  Israel  does  not  divest  Himself  of  His 
supreme  character  as  the  universal  judge,  He  has  rela- 
tions with  Israel  which  are  shared  by  no  other  nation, 
and  these  relations  involve  special  responsibilities,  and 
give  a  peculiar  significance  to  the  development  of  His 
purpose  as  it  regards  His  chosen  people.  It  is  on  this 
special  aspect  of  the  impending  judgment  that  Amos 
concentrates  his  attention  after  the  general  introduction 
in  chapters  i.  and  ii.  of  his  prophecy.  As  the  fall  of 
Israel  is  part  of  the  conmion  overthrow  of  the  Pales- 
tinian states,  Judah  and  Ephraim  are  alike  involved, 
Jerusalem  as  well  as  Samaria  must  fall  before  the 
destroyer  (ii.  4,  5).^^  What  Amos  has  to  say  to  Israel  is 
addressed  to  the  whole  family  that  Jehovah  brought  up 
out  of  Egypt  (iii.  1),  and  they  that  are  at  ease  in  Zion 
are  ranked  with  the  self-confident  princes  of  Samaria 


LECT.  III.  JUDAH  AND  EPHRAIM.  137 

(vi.  1).  But  tlie  sin  and  fate  of  Judah  are  very  briefly 
touclied.  The  centre  of  national  life  was  not  in  the 
petty  state  of  Judah,  but  in  the  great  Northern  Kingdom. 
Though  the  restoration  of  the  Davidic  monarchy  is  the 
ideal  of  Amos  (ix.  11),  as  in  another  sense  it  had  been 
the  ideal  of  the  greatest  monarchs  of  Ephraim  {suiira, 
p.  76),  he  does  not  treat  the  larger  Israel  of  the  north 
as  a  schismatic  state.  Eevolt  from  the  house  of  David 
and  the  sanctuary  of  Jerusalem  is  no  part  of  Ephraim's 
sin,  and  the  prophet  addresses  himself  more  directly  to 
the  house  of  Joseph,  not  because  the  sins  of  Joseph  and 
of  Judah  were  essentially  distinct,  but  because  the  house 
of  Joseph  was  still  the  foremost  representative  of  Israel. 
The  fundamental  law  of  Jehovah's  special  relations 
to  Israel  as  they  bear  on  the  approach  of  the  Assyrian 
is  expressed  in  a  verse  which  I  have  already  cited. 
"  You  only  have  I  known  of  all  the  families  of  the 
earth ;  therefore  I  will  punish  you  for  all  your  iniqui- 
ties "  (iii.  2).  To  know  a  man  is  to  admit  him  to  your 
acquaintance  and  converse.  Jehovah  has  known  Israel 
inasmuch  as  He  has  had  personal  dealings  with  it.  The 
proof  of  this  is  not  simply  that  Jehovah  brought  up  His 
people  from  Egypt  and  gave  them  the  land  of  Canaan 
(ii.  9,  10),  for  it  was  Jehovah  who  brought  up  the 
Philistines  from  Caphtor  and  the  Aramceans  from 
Kir  (ix.  7)  although  they  knew  it  not.  But  with 
Israel  Jehovah  held  personal  converse.  "  I  raised  up 
of  your  sons  for  prophets,  and  of  your  young  men  for 
Nazarites"  (ii.  11).     "The  Lord  Jehovah  will  not  do 


138  HO  IVJEHO  VAH  IS  lect.  iil 

anything  without  revealing  His  secret  to  His  servants 
the  prophets "  (iii.  7).  This  is  the  real  distinction 
between  Israel  and  the  nations — that  in  all  that 
Jehovah  did  for  His  people  in  time  past,  in  all  that  He 
is  purposing  against  them  now,  He  has  been  to  them 
not  an  unknown  power  working  by  hidden  laws,  but 
a  God  who  declares  Himself  to  them  personally,  as  a 
man  does  to  a  friend.  And  so  the  sin  of  Israel  is  not 
merely  that  it  has  broken  through  laws  of  right  and 
wrong  patent  to  all  mankind,  but  that  it  has  refused 
to  listen  to  these  law^s  as  tbey  were  personally  ex- 
plained to  it  by  the  Judge  Himself.  They  gave  the 
iSTazarites  wine  to  drink,  and  commanded  the  prophets 
not  to  prophesy  (ii.  12).  And  now  every  good  gift  of 
Jehovah  to  Israel  is  but  a  new  reason  for  dreading  His 
judgment,  when  Israel  has  refused  to  hear  how  He 
means  them  to  use  His  gifts.  The  princes  of  Zion  and 
Samaria  are  at  ease  and  unconcerned.  What  I  says  the 
prophet,  is  not  Israel  the  chief  of  nations  ?  Is  there 
from  Calneh  and  Hamath  to  the  Philistine  border  a 
single  kingdom  broader  or  better  than  your  own  ? 
"  Therefore  ye  shall  go  into  captivity  with  the  first  that 
go  captive"  (vi.  1  scq^). 

As  the  privilege  of  Israel  is  that  all  Jehovah's 
favours  are  accompanied  and  interpreted  by  His  per- 
sonal revelation,  the  special  duty  of  Israel  is  to  seek 
Jefwvah.  Thus  saith  Jehovah  to  the  house  of  Israel, 
"  Seek  me  and  live  "  (v.  6).  "  To  seek  God  "  is  the  old 
Hebrew  plirase  for  consulting  His  oracle,  asking  His  help 


LECT.  III.  TO  BE  SOUGHT.  139 

or  decision  in  difficult  affairs  of  conduct  or  law  (Gen. 
XXV.  22;  Exod.  xviii.  15;  2  Kings  iii.  11;  viii.  8);  and 
by  ancient  usage  Jehovali  \yas  habitually  sought  at  the 
sanctuary,  though  the  phrase  is  equally  applicable  to 
consulting  a  prophet.  In  fact,  the  offerings  of  the 
sanctuary  may  be  broadly  divided  into  two  classes, 
those  which  express  homage  and  thanksgiving  {minliah, 
slidlein),  and  those  which  were  presented  in  connection 
with  some  request  or  inquiry.  In  the  latter  class  the 
burnt-offering  is  most  conspicuous.  But  Amos  refuses 
to  acknowledge  this  way  of  seeking  God.  "  Seek  ye 
not  Bethel,  and  come  not  unto  Gilgal,  and  pass  not  over 
the  border  to  Beersheba ;  for  Gilgal  shall  go  captive,  and 
Bethel  shall  come  to  nought.  Seek  Jehovah,  and  live ; 
lest  He  break  forth  like  fire  in  the  house  of  Jacob,  and  it 
devour  and  there  be  none  to  quench  it  in  Bethel "  (v.  5, 
6).  The  multiplication  of  gifts  and  offerings  is  but 
multiplication  of  sin  ;  the  people  love  to  do  these  things, 
but  Jehovah  answers  them  only  by  famine,  blasting,  and 
war  (chap.  iv.).  He  is  not  to  be  found  by  sacrifice,  for 
in  it  He  takes  no  pleasure  ;  what  Jehovali  requires  of 
them  that  seek  Him  is  the  practice  of  civil  righteousness. 
When  Amos  represents  the  national  worship  of 
Israel  as  positively  sinful,  he  does  so  mainly  because  it 
was  so  conducted  as  to  afford  a  positive  encouragement 
to  the  injustice,  the  sensuality,  the  barbarous  treatment 
of  the  poor,  to  which  he  recurs  again  and  again  as  the 
cardinal  sins  of  the  nation.  The  religion  of  Israel  had 
become   a  religion  for  the  rich,  the   priests   and  the 


140  THE  SINS  OF  lect.  hi. 

nobles  were  linked  together  in  unrighteousness,  and  the 
most  flagrant  scenes  of  immorality  and  oppression  were 
seen  at  the  sacred  courts  (ii.  7,  8).  Amos  never  speaks 
of  the  golden  calves  as  the  sin  of  the  northern  sanc- 
tuaries, and  he  has  only  one  or  two  allusions  to  the 
worship  of  false  gods  or  idolatrous  symbols.  The  Guilt 
of  Samaria,  spoken  of  as  a  concrete  object  in  viii.  14,  is 
probably  the  Ashera  of  2  Kings  xiii.  6,  which  had  a 
connection  with  the  moral  impurities  of  Canaanite 
religion  ;  and  in  Amos  v.  26  there  is  a  very  obscure 
allusion  to  the  w^orship  of  star-gods,  which  from  the 
connection  cannot  have  been  a  rival  service  to  that  of 
Jehovah,  but  probably  attached  itself  in  a  subordinate 
way  to  the  offices  of  His  sanctuary .^^  Once,  and  only 
once,  in  speaking  of  leavened  bread  as  burned  on  the 
altar,  does  the  prophet  appear  to  touch  on  a  ritual 
departure,  of  Canaanite  character  and  presumably 
Dionysiac  significance,  from  the  ancient  ritual  of  Exod. 
xxiii.  18.^^  But  these  points  are  merely  touched  in 
passiDg.  The  whole  ritual  service  is  to  Amos  a  thing 
without  importance  in  itself.  The  Israelites  offered  no 
sacrifice  in  the  wilderness,  and  yet  Jehovah  was  never 
nearer  to  them  than  then  (v.  25  compared  with  ii.  10). 
The  judgment  of  Jehovah  begins  at  the  sanctuary  (ix.  1 
sc<2-  ;  iii-  14),  because  the  sanctuaries  are  the  centre  of 
Israel's  religious  life  and  so  also  of  its  moral  corruption. 
The  palace  and  the  temple  stood  side  by  side  (vii.  13), 
and  they  fall  together  (iii.  14,  15  ;  vii.  9)  in  the 
common  overthrow  of  the  state  and  its  religion. 


LECT.  III.  ISRAEL'S  RELIGION.  141 

If  we  ask  what  Amos  desired  to  set  in  the  place 
of  the  system  he  so  utterly  condemns,  the  answer  is 
apparently  very  meagre.  He  has  no  new  scheme  of 
church  and  state  to  propose — only  this,  that  Jehovah 
desires  righteousness  and  not  sacrifice.  Amos,  in  fact, 
is  neither  a  statesman  nor  a  religious  legislator ;  he 
has  received  a  message  from  Jehovah,  and  his  duty  is 
exhausted  in  delivering  it.  Till  this  message  is  received 
and  taken  to  heart  no  project  of  reformation  can  avail ; 
the  first  thing  that  Israel  must  learn  is  the  plain  con- 
nection between  its  present  sin  and  the  danger  that 
looms  on  its  horizon.  If  two  men  walk  together,  says 
Amos,  you  know  that  they  have  an  understanding ;  if 
the  lion  roars  he  has  prey  witliin  his  reach  ;  if  the 
springe  flies  up  from  the  ground,  there  is  something  in 
the  noose  ;  if  the  springe  catches  the  bird  it  must  have 
been  rightly  set  (iii.  3  seq^).  And  so,  let  Israel  be  assured, 
the  advance  of  Assyria  and  the  sin  of  Israel  hang  to- 
gether in  Jehovah's  purpose,  and  the  man  who  knows  the 
secret  of  Jehovah's  righteousness  cannot  doubt  that  the 
approaching  destruction  is  a  sentence  on  the  nation's 
guilt.  To  produce  conviction  of  sin  by  an  aj^peal  to 
the  universal  conscience,  to  the  known  nature  of  Jehovah, 
above  all  to  the  already  visible  shadow  of  coming  events 
that  prove  the  justice  of  the  prophetic  argument,  is  the 
great  purpose  of  the  prophet's  preaching. 

That  that  judgment  will  be  averted  by  the  repent- 
ance of  those  who  rule  the  affairs  of  the  nation  Amos 
has  no  hope.     The  doom  of  tlic  kingdom  is  inevitable, 


142  ESCHATOLOGY 


and  the  sword  of  Jehovah  shall  pursue  the  sinners  even 
in  fliglit  and  captivity  till  tlie  last  of  them  has  perished. 
What  Amos  means  by  the  total  destruction  of  the 
sinners  of  Jehovah's  people  (ix.  1-10)  is  of  course  to 
be  understood  from  his  view  of  Israel's  sin  as  con- 
sisting essentially  in  social  offences  inconsistent  with 
national  righteousness.  He  does  not  mean  by  the  word 
"  sinner  "  the  same  thing  as  modern  theology  does.  The 
sinners  of  Israel  are  the  corrupt  rulers  and  their  asso- 
ciates, the  unjust  and  sensual  oppressors,  the  men  who 
have  no  regard  to  civil  righteousness.  The  total  destruc- 
tion of  these  is  the  first  condition  of  Israel's  restoration, 
for  even  in  judgment  Jehovah  has  not  cast  off  His 
people,  and,  though  He  could  easily  destroy  the  land  by 
natural  agencies  or  burn  up  the  guilty  nation  in  a  sea 
of  flame  (vii.  1  seci),  He  chooses  another  course,  and 
carries  His  people  into  captivity,  that  He  may  sift  them 
wdiile  they  wander  through  the  nations  as  corn  is  sifted 
in  a  sieve,  without  one  sound  grain  falling  to  the  ground. 
And  so  when  all  the  sinners  are  consumed  His  hand 
will  build  up  a  new  Israel  as  in  the  days  of  the  first 
kingdom.  The  fallen  tent  of  David  shall  be  restored, 
and  the  Hebrews  shall  again  rule  over  all  those  vassal 
nations  that  once  were  Jehovah's  tributaries.  Then  the 
land  inhabited  by  a  nation  purged  of  transgressors  shall 
flow  with  milk  and  wine.  "  And  I  will  restore  the 
prosperity  of  ]\Iy  people  Israel,  and  they  shall  build 
waste  cities  and  dwell  therein,  and  plant  vineyards  and 
drink  the  wine  thereof,  and  make  gardens  and  eat  the 


LECT.  III.  OF  AMOS.  143 

fruit  of  tliem.  And  I  will  plant  tliem  upon  their  land, 
and  they  shall  no  more  be  plucked  out  of  their  land 
which  I  give  unto  them,  saith  Jehovah  thy  God." 

These  are  the  closing  words  of  the  prophecy  of 
Amos,  and  here  we  must  pause  for  the  present,  reserving 
the  remarks  which  they  suggest  till  we  can  compare 
them  with  the  picture  of  the  restoration  of  Israel  set 
forth  a  little  later  by  his  immediate  successor  Hosea. 


144  HOSE  A  AND  THE  lect.  iv. 


LECTUEE    IV. 

HOSEA  AND  THE  FALL  OF  EPHEAIM. 

The  prophetic  work  of  Amos,  which  we  examined  in 
Last  Lecture,  falls  entirely  within  the  prosperous  reign 
of  Jeroboam  II.  Hosea  began  to  prophesy  in  the  same 
reign,  as  appears  not  only  from  the  title  of  his  book, 
but  from  tlie  contents  of  the  first  two  chapters.  "  Yet 
a  little  while/'  says  Jehovah  in  Hosea  i.  4,  "  and  I  will 
punish  the  house  of  Jehu  for  the  bloodshed  of  Jezreel" — 
that  is,  for  the  slaying  of  the  seed  of  Ahab — "  and  will 
cause  to  cease  the  kingdom  of  the  house  of  Israel." 
But  Hosea  continued  his  ministry  after  the  prediction 
of  judgment  on  the  descendants  of  Jehu  had  been  ful- 
filled, and  the  latter  part  of  his  book  contains  unmis- 
takable references  to  the  state  of  anarchy  into  which 
the  Northern  Kingdom  fell  on  the  extinction  of  the  last 
great  dynasty  that  occupied  the  throne  of  Samaria. 
Before  we  address  ourselves,  therefore,  to  the  study  of 
liis  life  and  prophecies  it  will  be  convenient  to  take  a 
rapid  survey  of  the  history  of  Ephraim  after  the  death 
of  Jeroboam,  and  in  order  to  gain  a  clear  view  of  the 
sequence  of  events  it  is  indispensable    to    say  a  few 


LECT.  IV.  FALL  OF  EPHRALM.  145 

words  on  the  tangled  chronology  of  the  period,  which  is 
usually  interpreted  in  a  way  that  does  no  small  violence 
to  the  Biblical  narrative.'^ 

According  to  the  chronology  which  has  passed  into 
general  currency  from  the  Annals  of  Archbishop  Usslier, 
and  is  represented  on  the  margins  of  most  English 
Bibles,  the  death  of  Jeroboam  was  followed  by  an  in- 
terregnum of  eleven  years,  after  which  his  son  Zachariah 
reigned  for  six  months,  when  he  was  slain  by  Shallum. 
The  Bible  knows  nothing  of  this  interregnum,  but  on 
the  contrary  informs  us  in  the  usual  way  that  Zachariah 
reigned  in  his  father's  stead  (2  Kings  xiv.  29).  The 
coronation  of  Zachariah  must  in  fact  have  followed  as 
a  matter  of  course,  since  his  father  died  in  peaceable 
possession  of  the  throne.  Even  if  revolt  broke  out 
immediately  on  this  event,  the  party  which  sided  with 
the  old  dynasty  would  at  once  recognise  the  legal  heir 
as  king,  and,  as  it  is  admitted  that  Zachariah  did  mount 
the  throne,  if  only  for  six  months,  we  cannot  doubt  that 
he  would  date  his  accession  from  the  time  when  he 
became  king  clejure.  And  apart  from  this  it  is  quite 
inconceivable  that  an  interregnum  of  eleven  years,  with 
the  stirring  incidents  inseparable  from  a  prolonged 
period  of  civil  war,  could  be  passed  over  in  absolute 
silence  by  the  Biblical  narrative. 

Whence,  then,  do  Archbishop  Ussher  and  other 
chronologists  derive  their  eleven  years  of  interregnum  ? 
From  the  death  of  Solomon  to  the  fall  of  Samaria  the 
history   of  the  books   of  Kings  forms   a   double  line. 


146  CHRONOLOGY  OF  THE  lect.  iv. 

Dates  are  determined  in  the  one  line  by  years  of  the 
kings  of  Ephraim,  in  the  other  by  years  of  the  kings 
of  Judah,  and  as  the  author  of  our  present  book  of 
Kings  used  separate  sources  for  the  history  of  the  two 
kingdoms  we  must  assume,  at  all  events  provisionally, 
that  the  two  lines  of  chronology  were  originally  dis- 
tinct. In  point  of  fact  they  are  not  merely  distinct, 
but  of  unequal  length,  as  may  be  shown  by  the  following 
simple  calculation.  According  to  the  Juda?an  line 
there  are  just  480  years  from  the  founding  of  Solomon's 
temple  to  the  return  from  Babylonian  exile,  B.C.  535. 
According  to  the  ISTorthern  reckoning  the  fall  of  Samaria 
took  place  in  the  241st  year  from  the  revolt  against 
Jeroboam,  or  in  the  278th  year  of  the  temple.  Counting 
then  up  the  Jud?can  line  and  down  the  other  we  get 
for  the  date  of  the  fall  of  Samaria  B.C.  737.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  we  start  from  the  statement  of  2  Kings 
xviii.  9,  that  Samaria  fell  in  the  sixth  year  of  Hezekiah, 
remembering  that  he  reigned  twenty-nine  years  in  all, 
and  that  his  death  fell  160  years  before  the  restoration, 
we  get  for  the  date  of  Samaria's  fall  B.C.  719.  In 
other  words,  the  Judtean  line  is  about  twenty  ^^ears  longer 
than  the  Northern  one.  It  is  in  order  to  get  over  this 
discrepancy  without  admitting  any  error  in  the  two 
sets  of  numbers  that  chronologists  assume  the  long 
interregnum  after  Jeroboam  II.'s  death,  and  another 
period  of  anarchy  somewhat  later.^  But  in  point  of 
fact  to  invent  an  interregnum  of  which  the  history  does 
not  speak  is  quite  as  serious  a  liberty  wdth  the  text  as 


LECT.  IV.  NORTHERN  KINGDOM.  147 

to  suppose  that  there  is  some  error  in  the  numbers. 
On  the  other  liancl,  to  suppose  that  the  numbers  have 
been  corrupted  in  transmission,  and  to  introduce  arbi- 
trary corrections — as  was  done,  for  example,  by  the  late 
George  Smith,  who  gives  Jeroboam  II.  fifty-one  years 
instead  of  forty-one,  and  Pekah  thirty  instead  of  twenty 
— is  thoroughly  unsatisfactory.  The  facts  justify  us  in 
saying  that  the  chronology  as  we  have  it  cannot  be  right ; 
but  they  do  not  justify  us  in  amending  it  at  our  own 
hand  and  by  purely  conjectural  methods.  And  when 
we  look  at  the  thing  more  closely  we  are  led  to  ask, 
not  whether  this  or  that  particular  number  is  corrupt, 
but  whether  the  early  Hebrews  had  a  precise  chronology 
dating  every  event  by  the  years  of  the  reigning  king. 
As  the  history  now  stands  we  have  an  exact  date  for  the 
accession  of  each  monarch,  but  events  happening  in  the 
course  of  a  reign  are  habitually  undated.  ISTo  date  of 
the  Northern  history  prior  to  the  fall  of  Samaria  is  given 
by  the  year  of  the  reigning  king  of  Ephraim,  and  in 
the  history  of  Judah,  till  the  time  of  Jeremiah,  almost 
all  events,  dated  by  years  of  the  kings  of  Jerusalem, 
have  reference  to  the  affairs  of  the  temple  (1  Kings  vi. 
37,  38  ;  xiv.  25,  26  ;  2  Kings  xii.  6  ;  xviii.  13  sc^'.  ;  xxii. 
3 ;  xxiii.  23).  In  the  temple  archives,  therefore,  a  system- 
atic record  of  dates  seems  to  have  been  kept,  but  the 
system  did  not  extend  to  general  affairs  ;  Amos,  for 
example,  does  not  date  his  prophecy  by  the  year  of 
King  Uzziah,  but  says  tliat  it  was  "  two  years  before 
the  earthquake."     Where  there  is  no  precise  system  by 


148  CHRONOLOGY  OF  THE  lect.  iv. 

which  events  are  regularly  dated,  a  reckoning  by  round 
numbers  can  hardly  be  avoided ;  and  on  such  a  system 
the  most  natural  unit  in  estimating  long  periods  is  not 
the  year  but  a  round  period  of  years  taken  to  represent 
a  generation.  Traces  of  this  way  of  counting  are  common 
enough  in  early  history,  and  among  the  Hebrews  the  unit 
w^as  taken  at  forty  years — forty,  in  fact,  being  a  common 
round  number  in  antiquity.^  The  whole  early  chron- 
ology of  the  Hebrews  is  measured  by  this  unit.  Forty, 
twenty,  and  eighty  are  constantly-recurring  numbers ;  the 
period  from  the  Exodus  to  the  founding  of  the  temple  is 
480  years,  or  twelve  forties,  and  an  equal  period  extends 
from  the  latter  event  to  the  return  from  exile,  while 
240  years  is  the  duration  of  the  Northern  Kingdom. 

But  again,  when  we  analyse  the  480  of  the  Judsean 
genealogy  and  the  240  of  the  Northern  Kingdom,  we 
find  that  each  is  naturally  divided  into  three  equal 
parts,  and  in  each  case  the  commencement  of  the  second 
third  is  given  by  a  date  which  is  not  due  to  the 
redactor  of  the  books  of  Kings,  but  stood  in  the  original 
sources  from  which  he  w^orked.  The  second  third  of 
the  Judfean  line  begins  with  the  year  of  Joash's  reforms 
in  the  temple,  and  ends  with  the  death  of  Hezekiah. 
In  the  Northern  line  the  second  period  of  80  years 
precisely  corresponds  witli  the  duration  of  the  Syrian 
wars,  Vv^hich  began  four  years  before  the  death  of  Ahab. 
These  cannot  be  mere  coincidences  ;  they  are  part  of  a 
system,  and,  vv^hen  taken  with  other  details  which  can- 
not be  dwelt  on  here,  they  seem  to   show   that   the 


LECT.  IV.  BOOKS  OF  KINGS.  149 

chronology  ou  eacli  line  was  constructed  on  the  method 
of  genealogies,  and  reduced  to  years  by  what  a  mathe- 
matician might  call  a  method  of  interpolation, — that  is, 
by  starting  with  certain  fixed  dates,  which  were  taken  as 
the  great  divisions  of  the  scheme,  and  then  filling  up  the 
intervals  in  an  approximate  way  from  a  rough  knowledge 
of  the  lonfier  or  shorter  duration  of  the  several  reisrns. 
The  scheme  as  a  whole,  at  least  as  regards  Judah,  appears 
to  have  been  worked  out  after  the  Exile,  since  it  reckons 
back  from  the  date  of  the  return.  It  has  also  been 
shown  by  a  critical  argument,  supported  by  observation 
of  the  Septuagint  text,  that  the  480  years  from  the 
Exodus  to  the  temple  were  added  to  the  text  of  1  Kings 
vi.  after  the  Exile.  Of  course  a  chronology  framed  in 
this  way  can  make  no  claim  to  be  absolutely  exact,  and 
it  ceases  to  be  surprising  that  the  two  lines  for  Ephraim 
and  Judah  are  not  precisely  correspondent.  The  whole 
body  of  dates  except  the  few  that  are  derived  from  the 
original  sources  are  to  be  regarded  as  nothing  more  than 
an  approximate  and  partly  conjectural  reconstruction  of 
the  chronology,  which  we  cannot  hope  to  render  more 
exact  without  the  help  of  records  lying  outside  of  the 
Bible. 

Of  late  years,  however,  such  external  aid  has  turned 
up  in  the  records  of  the  Assyrian  kings.  Unlike  the 
Hebrews,  the  Assyrians  were  exact  chronologers.  They 
had  considerable  astronomical  knowledge,  and  thus  had 
learned  to  keep  a  precise  record  of  years.  As  Eoman 
chronology  is  based  on  the  list  of  consuls,  or  as   the 


150  CHRONOLOGY  OF  THE  lect.  iv. 

Athenians  named  eacli  year  after  the  so-called  Archon 
Eponymus,  so  in  Assyria  there  was  a  high  official 
appointed  annually  who  gave  his  name  to  his  year  of 
office.  The  list  of  these  eponyms  or  date-giving  officials 
has  fortunately  been  preserved  in  a  number  of  copies, 
and,  as  a  note  of  royal  expeditions  and  the  like  stands 
opposite  each  name,  it  forms,  in  conjunction  with  other 
monuments,  a  complete  key  to  Assyrian  chronology,  the 
accuracy  of  which  has  been  verified  by  numerous  tests, 
on  which  it  is  unnecessary  to  enlarge.  The  lower  part 
of  the  Eponym  Canon  runs  parallel  with  the  Canon  of 
Ptolemy,  which  is  one  of  the  chief  bases  of  ancient 
chronology,  and  in  this  way  it  becomes  possible  to 
express  the  Assyrian  dates  with  reference  to  the 
Christian  era. 

ISTow  the  Assyrian  annals  mention  Jehu  as  paying 
tribute  to  Shalmaneser  B.C.  842,  and  Menahem  is  men- 
tioned B.C.  738,  104  years  later.  It  can  be  shown  that 
this  tribute  of  Jehu  must  have  fallen  in  one  of  the  first 
years  of  his  reign,  and  as  the  sum  of  the  reigns  from 
Jehu  to  Menahem  inclusive  is  just  112  years,  according 
to  the  Bible,  the  Assyrian  records  confirm  the  general 
accuracy  of  the  Northern  line  of  chronology  for  this 
period,  and  completely  justify  us  in  our  refusal  to  allow 
the  eleven  years'  interregnum  of  the  Ussherian  chron- 
ology. It  ought,  however,  to  be  observed  that  these  re- 
sults do  not  afford  any  guarantee  that  the  details  of  the 
Bible  chronology,  even  in  Northern  Israel,  are  more  than 
approximate,  or  weaken  the  force  of  the  argument  that 


LECT.  IV.  BOOKS  OF  KINGS.  151 

the  original  reckoning  was  in  round  numbers.  For 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  old  history  of 
the  Northern  prophets,  from  which  the  editor  of  the 
books  of  Kings  worked,  gave  eighty  years  for  the  Syrian 
wars  ;  and,  with  this  datum  and  a  generation  of  prosperity 
under  Jeroboam  IL,  the  editor  could  not  fail  to  give  a 
tolerably  correct  estimate  of  the  length  of  the  period  in 
question.  For  the  period  between  Menahem  and  the 
fall  of  Samaria  the  Biblical  chronologer  seems  to  have 
had  less  full  guidance  from  ancient  sources.  For,  accord- 
ing to  the  monuments,  Samaria  was  besieged  cir.  B.C.  722, 
so  that  the  reigns  of  the  last  three  kings  of  Samaria,  which 
the  Bible  estimates  at  thirty-one  years,  must  be  reduced 
by  one  half.*  The  practical  result  of  this  inquiry  is  that 
the  decline  of  Israel,  after  the  death  of  Jeroboam,  was 
much  more  rapid  than  appears  from  the  usual  chron- 
ology, and  instead  of  occupying  sixty  years  to  the  fall  of 
Samaria,  was  really  complete  in  less  than  half  that  time. 
This  rapid  descent  from  the  prosperity  of  the  days  of 
Jeroboam  throws  a  fresh  light  on  the  predictions  of 
speedy  destruction  given  by  Amos  and  Hosea. 

Let  us  now,  with  the  aid  of  the  amended  chronology, 
take  a  rapid  view  of  the  successive  steps  in  the  fall  of 
the  kingdom  of  Samaria.  On  the  death  of  Jeroboam  IL, 
his  son  Zachariah  succeeded  to  the  throne,  but  after  six 
months  lost  his  kingdom  and  his  life  in  the  conspiracy 
of  Shallum.  The  assassin  assumed  the  royal  dignity, 
but  was  not  able  to  maintain  it,  for  he  was  immediately 
attacked  by  Menahem,  and  perished  in  turn.     Menahem 


152  THE  LAST  YEARS  lect.  iv. 

established  liimself  on  the  throne  after  a  ferocious 
struggle  (2  Kings  xv.  IG).  The  success,  however,  was 
not  due  to  his  own  prowess,  but  to  the  assistance  of  Pul, 
king  of  Assyria,  to  whom  he  gave  a  thousand  talents, 
raised  by  a  tax  on  the  great  men  of  the  country,  "  that 
his  hand  might  be  with  him  to  confirm  the  kingdom  in 
his  hand"  (2  Kings  xv.  19).  Menahem  reigned,  there- 
fore, as  an  Assyrian  vassal,  and  so  within  a  few  months 
after  Jeroboam's  death  his  dynasty  was  extinguished, 
and  the  foe,  whose  approach  Amos  foresaw,  had  laid  his 
strong  hand  on  Israel,  never  again  to  relax  his  grasp. 
On  the  death  of  Menahem,  the  flame  of  civil  war  broke 
out  once  more.  His  son  Pekahiah  w^as  assassinated 
after  a  short  reign,  and  the  throne  was  occupied  by  a 
military  adventurer  named  Pekah,  supported  by  a  band 
of  Gileadites.  Pekah  allied  himself  with  Eezin  of 
Damascus,  and  formed  the  project  of  dethroning  Ahaz, 
king  of  Judah.  Ahaz  appealed  to  Tiglath  Pileser,  who 
marched  westward,  led  the  Damascenes  captive,  as 
Amos  had  foretold,  and  also  depopulated  Gilead  and 
Galilee.  In  this  disastrous  war  Pekah  had  lost  his 
prestige,  and,  though  the  Assyrians  seem  to  have  left 
him  in  power,  he  was  presently  attacked  and  slain  by 
Hoshea,  the  son  of  Elah.  He  in  turn  had  to  reckon 
with  the  Assyrian,  and  had  to  pay  a  subsidy  and  yearly 
tribute  as  the  price  of  his  throne.  But  Hoshea  was 
eager  to  cast  off  the  yoke,  and  sought  help  from  the 
king  of  Egypt,  who  had  begun  to  bid  against  Assyria 
for  the  lordship  of  the  mountains  of  Canaan,  which 


LECT.  IV.  OF  SAMARIA.  153 

formed  tlie  natural  barrier  between  the  great  powers  of 
the  Nile  and  tlie  Tigris.  This  defection  sealed  the 
doom  of  Samaria.  The  Assyrians  again  invaded  the 
land ;  after  a  prolonged  and  desperate  resistance,  the 
capital  was  taken,  and  the  Israelites  were  carried 
captive  to  the  far  East,  new  populations  being  brought 
from  Babylon  and  other  districts  to  take  their  place. 
It  appears  from  the  Assyrian  monuments  that  a  vassal 
kingdom  existed  in  Samaria  after  this  deportation, 
whicli  no  doubt  was  only  partial,  and  it  is  not  improbable 
that  it  w^as  ruled  by  princes  of  Hebrew  race  for  half 
a  century  longer  ^;^  while  we  know  that  Jehovah  worship 
did  not  altogether  cease  in  the  land,  and  was  even 
accepted  in  a  corrupt  form  by  the  new  colonists  (2  Kings 
xvii.  24  sec[. ;  2  Kings  xxiii.  15  ;  Jer.  xli.  5).  But  the 
distinctive  character  of  the  nation  was  lost  ;  such 
Hebrews  as  remained  in  their  old  land  became  mixed 
with  their  heathen  neighbours,  and  ceased  to  have  any 
share  in  the  further  history  of  Israel  and  Israel's  religion. 
When  Josiah  destro3'ed  the  ancient  high  places  of  the 
Northern  Kingdom  he  slew  their  priests,  whereas  the 
priests  of  Juda^an  sanctuaries  were  provided  for  at 
Jerusalem.  It  is  plain  from  this  that  he  regarded  the 
worship  of  the  Northern  sanctuaries  as  purely  heathenish 
(comp.  2  Kings  xxiii.  20  with  ver.  5),  and  it  was  only 
in  much  later  times  that  the  mixed  population  of 
Samaria  became  possessed  of  the  Pentateuch,  and  set 
up  a  worship  on  Mount  Gerizim  in  imitation  of  the 
ritual  of  the   second  temple.     We  have  no  reason  to 

-^jlf*  Sec  page  439. 


154  HOSEA,  SON  lect.  iv. 

think  that  the  captive  Ephraimites  were  more  able  to 
retain  their  distinctive  character  than  their  brethren 
who  remained  in  Palestine.  The  problem  of  the  lost 
tribes,  which  has  so  much  attraction  for  some  speculators, 
is  a  purely  fanciful  one.  The  people  whom  Hosea  and 
Amos  describe  were  not  fitted  to  maintain  themselves 
apart  from  the  heathen  among  whom  they  dwelt. 
Scattered  among  strange  nations,  they  accepted  the 
service  of  strange  gods  (Deut.  xxviii.  64),  and,  losing 
their  distinctive  religion,  lost  also  their  distinctive  ex- 
istence. The  further  history  of  the  people  of  Jehovah 
is  transferred  to  the  house  of  Judah,  and  with  the  fall 
of  Samaria  Northern  Israel  ceases  to  have  any  part  in 
the  progress  of  revelation. 

Hosea,  or  Hoshea,  as  the  name  should  rather  be 
written,  is  the  last  prophet  of  Ephraim.*^  Unlike  Amos, 
he  was  himself  a  subject  of  the  Northern  Kingdom,  as 
appears  from  the  whole  tenor  of  his  book,  and  especially 
from  vii.  5,  where  the  monarch  of  Samaria  is  called 
"  our  king."  Like  Amos,  he  is  mainly  concerned  with 
the  sins  and  calamities  of  the  house  of  Joseph ;  but, 
while  Amos  speaks  from  observation  which,  with  all 
its  closeness,  is  that  of  an  outsider,  whose  personal  life 
lay  far  from  the  tumults  and  oppressions  of  the  Northern 
capital,  Hosea  views  the  state  of  the  kingdom  from 
within,  and  his  book  is  marked  by  a  tone  of  deep  pathos, 
akin  to  that  of  Jeremiah,  and  expressive  of  the  tragic 
isolation  of  the  prophet's  position  in  a  society  corrupt  to 
the  very  core  and  visibly  hastening  towards  dissolution. 


LECT.  IV.  OF  BEERL  155 

Amos  could  deliver  Lis  divine  message  and  withdraw 
from  the  turmoil  of  Samaria's  guilty  cities  to  the  silent 
pastures  of  the  wilderness  ;  but  the  whole  life  of  Hosea 
was  bound  up  with  the  nation  whose  sins  he  condemned 
and  whose  ruin  he  foresaw.  For  him  there  was  no 
escape  from  the  scenes  of  horror  that  defiled  his  native 
land,  and  the  anguish  that  expresses  itself  in  every 
page  of  his  prophecy  is  the  distress  of  a  pure  and  gentle 
soul,  linked  by  the  closest  ties  of  family  affection  and 
national  feeling  to  the  sinners  who  were  hurrying  Israel 
onwards  to  the  doom  he  saw  so  clearly,  but  of  which 
they  refused  to  hear.  And  so  while  the  work  of  Amos 
was  completed  in  a  single  brief  mission,  the  prophecies 
of  Hosea  extend  over  a  series  of  terrible  years.  Tiie 
first  two  chapters  of  his  book  are  dated  from  the  reign 
of  Jeroboam,  the  gala-days  of  the  nation  (ii.  13),  when 
the  feast-days,  the  new  moons,  and  the  Sabbaths  still 
ran  their  joyous  round,  and  the  land  was  rich  in  corn 
and  wine  and  oil,  in  store  of  silver  and  gold  (ii.  8). 
But  '(ho.  later  chapters  of  the  prophecy  speak  of  quite 
other  times,  of  sickness  in  the  state  which  its  leaders 
vainly  sought  to  heal  by  invoking  the  help  of  the 
"warlike  king"  [A.V.  King  Jareb]  of  Assyria  (v.  13), 
of  civil  wars  and  conspiracies,  of  the  assassination  of 
monarchs,  of  new  dynasties  set  up  without  Jehovah's 
counsel,  and  powerless  to  better  the  condition  of  the 
nation  (vii.  *7  ;  viii.  4),  of  a  universal  reign  of  perjury 
and  fraud,  of  violence  and  bloodshed  (iv.  1,  2).  These 
descriptions  carry  us  into  the  evil  times  that  opened 


156  THE  MINISTRY  lect.iv. 

with  the  fall  of  the  house  of  Jehu ;  but  the  actual 
captivity  of  Israel  is  still  in  the  future  (xiii.  1 6) :  even 
in  the  closing  chapter  of  his  book  Hosea  addresses  a 
nation  which  has  not  come  to  open  breach  with  the 
Assyrians,  but  cherishes  the  vain  hope  of  deliver- 
ance through  their  help  (xiv.  3).  Gilead  and  Galilee, 
which  were  depopulated  by  Tiglath-Pileser  in  his  ex- 
pedition against  Pekah  (B.C.  734),  are  repeatedly  referred 
to  as  an  integral  part  of  the  kingdom  (v.  1  ;  vi.  8  ; 
xii.  11),  and  it  is  therefore  probable  that  the  work  of 
Hosea  was  ended  before  that  event,  and  that  the  prophet 
was  spared  the  crowning  sorrow  of  seeing  with  his  own 
eyes  the  fulfilment  of  the  doom  of  his  nation.'^ 

There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  Hosea,  any  more 
than  Amos,  was  connected  with  the  recognised  prophetic 
societies,  or  ever  received  such  outward  adoption  to 
office  as  was  given  to  Elisha.  At  chapter  iv.  5  he 
comprises  priest  and  prophet  in  one  condemnation. 
Israel  is  undone  for  lack  of  knowledge,  for  the  priests 
whose  office  it  was  to  teach  it  have  rejected  the  know- 
ledge of  Jehovah,  and  He  in  turn  will  reject  them  from 
their  priesthood.  They  shall  fall,  and  the  prophet  shall 
fall  with  them  in  the  night,  their  children  shall  be 
forgotten  of  Jehovah,  and  their  whole  stock  shall 
perish.^  Thus  Hosea,  no  less  than  Amos,  places  himself 
in  direct  opposition  to  all  the  leaders  of  the  religious 
life  of  his  nation,  and  like  his  Juda^an  compeer  he  had 
doubtless  to  reckon  with  their  hostility.  *'  As  for  the 
prophet,"  he  complains,  "  a  fowler's  snare  is  in  all  liis 


LECT.  IV.  OF  HOSEA.  157 

ways,  and  enmity  in  the  house  of  his  God"  (ix.  8). 
To  discharge  his  ministry  year  after  year  amidst  such 
opposition  was  a  far  harder  task  than  was  appointed  to 
Amos.  Even  Amos  was  constrained  to  exclaim  that  in 
times  so  evil  the  part  of  a  prudent  man  was  to  hold  his 
peace  (Amos  v.  13).  But  Amos  at  least  could  shake 
the  dust  off  his  feet  and  return  to  his  kindred  and  his 
home ;  Hosea  was  a  stranger  among  his  own  people, 
oppressed  by  continual  contact  with  their  sin,  lacerated 
at  heart  by  the  bitterness  of  their  enmity,  till  his  reason 
seemed  ready  to  give  way  under  the  trial.  "  The  days 
of  visitation  are  come,  the  days  of  recompense  are 
come,  Israel  shall  know  it ;  the  prophet  is  a  fool,  the 
man  of  the  spirit  is  mad  for  the  multitude  of  thine 
iniquity  and  the  great  hatred  "  (ix.  7).  The  passionate 
anguish  that  breathes  in  these  words  gives  its  colour  to 
the  whole  book  of  Hosea's  prophecies.  His  language 
and  the  movement  of  his  thoughts  are  far  removed  from 
the  simplicity  and  self-control  which  characterise  the 
prophecy  of  Amos.  Indignation  and  sorrow,  tender- 
ness and  severity,  faith  in  the  sovereignty  of  Jehovah's 
love,  and  a  despairing  sense  of  Israel's  infidelity  are 
woven  together  in  a  sequence  which  has  no  logical  plan, 
but  is  determined  by  the  battle  and  alternate  victory 
of  contending  emotions  ;  and  the  swift  transitions,  the 
fragmentary  unbalanced  utterance,  the  half- developed 
allusions,  that  make  his  prophecy  so  difficult  to  the 
commentator,  express  the  agony  of  this  inward  conflict. 
Hosea,  above   all  other  prophets,  is   a   man  of   deep 


158  CHARACTER  lect.  iv. 

affections,  of  a  gentle  poetic  nature.  His  heart  is  too 
true  and  tender  to  snap  the  bonds  of  country  and 
kindred,  or  mingle  anglit  of  personal  bitterness  with 
the  severity  of  Jehovah's  words.  Alone  in  the  midst 
of  a  nation  that  knows  not  Jehovah,  without  disciple 
or  friend,  without  the  solace  of  domestic  affection — for 
even  his  home,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  was  full  of 
shame  and  sorrow — he  yet  clings  to  Israel  with  inextin- 
guishable love.  The  doom  which  he  proclaims  against 
his  people  is  the  doom  of  all  that  is  dearest  to  him  on 
earth  ;  his  heart  is  ready  to  break  with  sorrow,  his  very 
reason  totters  under  the  awful  vision  of  judgment,  his 
whole  prophecy  is  a  long  cry  of  anguish,  as  again  and 
again  he  renews  his  appeal  to  the  heedless  nation  that 
is  running  headlong  to  destruction.  But  it  is  all  in 
vain.  The  weary  years  roll  on,  the  signs  of  Israel's 
dissolution  thicken,  and  still  his  words  find  no  audience. 
Like  a  silly  dove  fluttering  in  the  toils,  Ephraim  turns 
now  to  Assyria,  now  to  Egypt, "  but  they  return  not  to 
Jehovah  their  God,  and  seek  not  Him  for  all  this." 
Still  the  prophet  stands  alone  in  his  recognition  of  the 
true  cause  of  the  multiplied  distresses  of  his  nation, 
and  still  it  is  his  task  to  preach  repentance  to  deaf 
ears,  to  declare  a  judgment  in  which  only  himself 
believes.  And  now  the  Assyrian  is  at  hand,  sweep- 
ing over  Canaan  like  a  fatal  sirocco.  "  An  east  wind 
shall  come,  the  breath  of  Jehovah  ascending  from  the 
wilderness,  and  his  spring  shall  become  dry  and  his 
fountain  shall  be  dried  up  ;  He  shall  spoil  the  treasure 


LECT.  IV.  OF  HOSE  A.  159 

of  all  precious  jewels.  Samaria  shall  be  desolate,  for 
she  hath  rebelled  against  her  God  :  they  shall  fall  by 
the  sword  :  tlieir  infants  shall  be  dashed  in  pieces,  and 
their  women  with  child  shall  be  ripped  up  "  (xiii.  15). 

And  yet,  when  all  is  lost,  the  prophet's  love  for 
guilty  and  fallen  Israel  forbids  him  to  despair.  For 
that  love  is  no  mere  earthly  affection.  It  is  Jehovah's 
love  for  His  erring  people  that  speaks  through  Hosea's 
soul.  The  heart  of  the  prophet  beats  responsive  to  the 
heart  of  Him  who  loved  Israel  when  he  was  a  child  and 
called  His  son  out  of  Egyjjt.  "  How  can  I  give  thee  up, 
Ephraim  ?  How  can  I  cast  thee  away,  Israel  ?  My 
heart  burns  within  Me,  My  compassion  is  all  kindled. 
I  will  not  execute  the  fierceness  of  My  wrath ;  I  will 
not  turn  to  destroy  thee  ;  for  I  am  God  and  not  man, 
the  Holy  One  in  the  midst  of  thee"  (xi.  8).  How  this 
invincible  love  shall  triumph  even  in  the  utter  fall  of 
the  nation  Hosea  does  not  explain.  But  that  it  will 
triumph  he  cannot  doubt.  In  the  extremity  of  judg- 
ment Jeliovah  will  yet  work  repentance  and  salvation, 
and  from  the  death-knell  of  Samaria  the  accents  of 
hope  and  promise  swell  forth  in  pure  and  strong 
cadence  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  prophecy,  out  of  a 
heart  which  has  found  its  rest  with  God  from  all  the 
troubles  of  a  stormy  life.  "I  will  heal  their  back- 
sliding, I  will  love  them  freely :  for  Mine  anger  is 
turned  away  from  him.  I  will  be  as  the  dew  to  Israel : 
he  shall  bud  forth  as  the  lily  and  strike  his  roots  as 
Lebanon.  .  .  .  Who  is  wise,  and  he  shall  understand 


160  THE  KNOWLEDGE  lect.  iv. 

these  things  ?  prudent,  and  he  shall  know  them  ?  For 
the  ways  of  Jehovah  are  right,  and  the  just  shall  walk 
in  them  ;  but  the  transgressors  shall  fall  therein." 

Hosea  is  a  man  of  emotion  rather  than  of  logic,  a 
poet  rather  than  a  preacher,  and  the  unity  of  his  book 
is  maintained  through  the  sudden  transitions  and  swift 
revulsions  of  feeling  characteristic  of  his  style,  not  by 
a  well-planned  symmetry  of  argument  such  as  we  find 
in  Amos,  but  by  a  constant  undercurrent  of  faith  in  the 
identity  of  Jehovah's  love  to  Israel  with  that  pure  and 
unselfish  affection  which  binds  the  prophet  himself  to 
his  guilty  and  fallen  nation.  Jehovah  is  God  and  not 
man,  the  Holy  One  in  the  midst  of  Israel.  But  this 
does  not  mean  that  the  heart  of  Jehovah  has  no  like- 
ness to  that  of  man.  His  righteousness  is  not  an 
impersonal  unlovable  thing  with  which  His  reasonable 
creatures  can  have  no  fellowship,  and  which  they  can- 
not hope  to  comprehend.  Where  Amos  says  that 
Jehovah  knows  Israel,  Hosea  desires  that  Israel  should 
know  Jehovah  (ii.  20  ;  iv.  1,  6  ;  vi.  3 ;  viii.  2  ;  xiii.  4). 
And  this  knowledge  is  no  mere  act  of  the  intellect  ;  to 
know  Jehovah  is  to  know  Him  as  a  tender  Father,  who 
taught  Ephraim  to  walk,  holding  them  by  their  arms, 
who  drew  them  to  Himself  with  human  cords,  with 
bands  of  love  (xi.  1  scq^.  In  chap.  vi.  6  the  know- 
ledge of  God  is  explained  in  a  parallel  clause,  not  by 
"  mercy,"  as  the  Authorised  Version  renders  it,  but  by 
a  word  {liescd)^  corresponding  to  the  Latin  pidas,  or 
dutiful  love,  as  it  shows  itself  in  acts  of  kindliness  and 


OF  JEHOVAH.  161 


loyal  affection.  It  is  quite  characteristic  of  the  differ- 
ence between  the  two  prophets,  that  in  Amos  this  word 
lfi6sed  or  kindness  never  occurs,  while  in  Hosea  it  not 
only  expresses  the  right  attitude  of  man  to  God,  but 
kindness  and  truth,  kindness  and  justice,  are  the  sum 
of  moral  duty  (iv.  1  ;  x.  12  ;  xii.  6).  Amos  in  such  a 
case  would  speak  of  justice  alone  ;  his  analysis  of  right 
and  wrong  pierces  less  deeply  into  the  springs  of 
human  action.  For  the  kindness  of  which  Hosea 
speaks  is  no  theological  technicality;  it  is  a  word  of 
common  life  used  of  all  those  acts,  going  beyond  the 
mere  norm  of  forensic  righteousness,  which  acknowledofe 
that  those  who  are  linked  together  by  the  bonds  of  per- 
sonal affection  or  of  social  unity  owe  to  one  another  more 
than  can  be  expressed  in  the  forms  of  legal  obligation. 

In  primitive  society,  where  every  stranger  is  an 
enemy,  the  whole  conception  of  duties  of  humanity  is 
framed  within  the  narrow  circle  of  the  family  or  the 
tribe  ;  relations  of  love  are  either  identical  with  those 
of  kinship  or  are  conceived  as  resting  on  a  covenant. 
"  Thou  shalt  show  kindness  to  thy  servant,"  says  David, 
"  for  thou  hast  brought  thy  servant  into  a  covenant  of 
Jehovah  with  thee."  And  so  in  Hosea  the  conception 
of  a  relation  of  love  and  kindness  between  man  and 
God  goes  side  by  side  v/ith  the  conception  of  Jehovah's 
covenant  with  Israel  (vi.  7 ;  viii.  1).  Jehovah  and 
Israel  are  united  by  a  bond  of  moral  obligation, —  not 
a  mere  compact  on  legal  terms,  a  covenant  of  works, 
as  dogmatic  theology  would  express  it,  but  a  bond  of 


162  JEHOVAH'S  COVENANT  lect.  iv. 

j)iety — of  fatherly  affection  on  the  one  hand,  and  loyal 
obedience  on  the  other.  Jehovah  and  Israel  form  as 
it  were  one  community,  and  Msed  is  the  bond  by  which 
the  whole  community  is  knit  together.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  distinguish  Jehovah's  lihed  to  Israel  which  we 
would  term  his  grace,  Israel's  duty  of  liescd  to  Jehovah 
which  we  would  call  piety,  and  the  relation  of  Mscd 
between  man  and  man  which  embraces  the  duties  of  love 
and  mutual  consideration.  To  the  Hebrew  mind  these 
three  are  essentially  one,  and  all  are  comprised  in  the 
same  covenant.  Loyalty  and  kindness  between  man 
and  man  are  not  duties  inferred  from  Israel's  relation 
to  Jehovah,  they  are  parts  of  that  relation ;  love  to 
Jehovah  and  love  to  one's  brethren  in  Jehovah's  house 
are  identical  (compare  iv.  1  with  vi.  4,  6).  To  Hosea, 
as  to  Amos,  justice  and  the  obligations  of  civil  righteous- 
ness are  still  the  chief  sphere  within  which  the  right 
knowledge  of  Jehovah  and  due  regard  to  His  covenant 
are  tested.  Where  religion  has  a  national  form,  and 
especially  in  such  a  state  of  society  as  both  proj)hets 
deal  with,  that  is  necessary ;  but  Hosea  refers  these 
obligations  to  a  deeper  source.  Israel  is  not  only  the 
dominion  but  the  family  of  Jehovah,  and  the  father- 
hood of  God  takes  the  place  of  his  kingly  righteousness 
as  the  fundamental  idea  of  Israel's  religion.  Jehovah 
is  God  and  not  man,  but  the  meaning  of  this  is  that 
His  love  is  sovereign,  pure,  unselfish,  free  from  all  im- 
patience and  all  variableness  as  the  love  of  an  earthly 
father  can  never  be. 


LECT.  IV.  OF  LOVE.  163 

This  fundamental  thought  of  Hosea,  that  the  rela- 
tion between  Jehovah  and  Israel  is  a  relation  of  love 
and  of  such  duties  as  flow  from  love,  gives  his  whole 
teaching  a  very  different  colour  from  that  of  Amos. 
Amos,  as  we  saw,  begins  by  looking  on  Jehovah  as  the 
Creator  and  God  of  the  universe,  who  dispenses  the  lot 
of  all  nations  and  vindicates  the  laws  of  universal 
righteousness  over  the  whole  earth  ;  and,  when  he  pro- 
ceeds to  concentrate  attention  on  his  own  people,  tlie 
prophet  still  keeps  the  larger  point  of  view  before  the 
mind  of  his  hearers,  and  treats  the  sin  and  judgment  of 
Israel  as  a  particular  case  under  the  general  laws  of  Divine 
government,  complicated  by  the  circumstance  that 
Jehovah  knows  Israel  and  has  personal  communications 
with  it  in  which  no  other  nation  shares.  Hosea  has  no 
such  universal  starting-point ;  he  deals  with  the  sub- 
ject not  from  the  outside  inwards  but  from  tlie  heart 
outwards.  Jehovah's  love  to  His  own  is  the  deepest 
thing  in  religion,  and  every  problem  of  faith  centres  in 
it.  To  both  prophets  the  distinction  which  we  are 
wont  to  draw  between  religious  and  moral  duties  is  un- 
known ;  yet  it  would  not  be  unfair  to  say  in  inodern 
language  that  Amos  bases  religion  on  morality,  while 
Hosea  deduces  morality  from  religion.  The  two  men 
are  types  of  a  contrast  which  runs  through  the  whole 
history  of  religious  thought  and  life  down  to  our  own 
days.  The  religious  world  has  always  been  divided 
into  men  who  look  at  the  questions  of  faith  from  the 
standpoint  of  universal  ethics,  and  men  by  whom  moral 


164  AAfOS  AND  HOSEA  lect.  iv. 

truths  are  habitually  approached  from  a  personal  sense 
of  the  grace  of  God.  Too  frequently  this  diversity  of 
standpoint  has  led  to  an  antagonism  of  parties  in  the 
Church.  Men  of  the  type  of  Amos  are  condemned  as 
rationalists  and  cold  moderates  ;  or,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  school  of  Hosea  are  looked  upon  as  enthusiasts  and 
unpractical  mystics.  But  Jehovah  chose  His  prophets 
from  men  of  both  types,  and  preached  the  same  lesson 
to  Israel  through  both. 

To  Amos  and  Hosea  alike  the  true  standard  of  re- 
ligious life  is  the  standard  of  conduct.  The  state  of  the 
nation  before  its  God  is  judged  by  its  actions ;  and  the 
prevalence  of  immorality,  oppression,  and  crime  is  the 
clearest  proof  that  Israel  has  departed  from  Jehovah. 
The  analysis  of  Amos  stops  at  this  point ;  he  does  not 
seek  into  the  hidden  springs  of  Israel's  sin,  but  simj^ly 
says,  Without  a  return  to  civil  righteousness,  which 
you  are  daily  violating,  you  can  find  no  acceptance 
before  Jehovah.  Hosea,  on  the  contrary,  with  his 
guiding  principle  of  a  relation  of  love  between  Jehovah 
and  Israel,  pierces  beneath  the  visible  conduct  of  the 
nation  to  the  disposition  that  underlies  it.  Amos  had 
said,  Cease  your  ritual  service,  and  do  judgment  and 
justice  (Amos  v.  2^)  ;  Hosea  says, "  I  desire  love  and 
not  sacrifice,  and  knowledge  of  God  rather  than  burnt 
offerings  **  (Hosea  vi.  6).  Amos  judges  the  moral  offences 
of  Israel  as  breaches  of  universal  law  aggravated  by  the 
possession  of  special  privileges  ;  Hosea  judges  them  as 
proofs  of  a  heart  not  true  to  Jehovah,  out  of  sympathy 


LECT.  IV.  CONTRASTED.  165 

with  His  character,  and  ungrateful  to  His  love.  Ac- 
cordingly, while  Amos  deals  mainly  with  Israel  as  a 
state,  Hosea  habitually  thinks  of  Ephraim  as  a  moral 
individual,  and  goes  back  again  and  again  to  the  history 
of  the  nation,  treating  it  as  the  history  of  a  person,  and 
following  its  relations  to  Jehovah  from  the  days  of  the 
patriarch  Jacob  (xii.  2,  3,  12),  through  the  deliverance 
from  Egypt  onwards  (xii.  13  ;  xi.  1  seg^.).  He  dwells 
with  special  interest  on  the  first  love  of  Jehovah  to  His 
people  when  He  found  Israel  like  grapes  in  the  wilder- 
ness (ix.  10),  when  He  knew  them  in  the  thirsty  desert 
(xiii.  5),  before  the  innocence  of  the  nation's  childhood 
was  stained  with  the  guilt  of  Baal-peor,  and  its  early 
love  had  vanished  like  the  dew  of  dawn,  or  like  the  light 
clouds  which  hanix  on  the  mountains  of  Palestine  in  the 
early  morning  and  dissolve  as  the  sun  gets  high  (vi.  4). 
Hosea's  allusions  to  the  past  history  of  Israel  are  intro- 
duced in  unexpected  ways,  and  are  often  difficult  to 
understand.  Sometimes  he  seems  to  refer  to  narratives 
which  we  no  longer  possess  in  the  same  form  (ix.  9  ; 
x.  9)  ;  but  their  general  drift  is  always  the  same — to 
vindicate  the  patient  consistent  love  of  Jehovah  to  His 
nation,  and  to  display  Ephraim's  sin  as  a  lifelong  course 
of  spurned  privileges  and  slighted  love.  It  is  this 
thought  of  the  personal  continuity  of  Israel's  relations 
to  Jehovah  that  leads  the  prophet  to  speak  of  God's 
dealings  with  Jacob  ;  for  Jacob  is,  in  fact,  the  nation 
summed  up  in  the  person  of  its  ancestor  (comp.  Heb. 
vii.  10).     And  so  the  whole  history,  from  the  days  of 


166  THE  LOVE  lect.  iv. 

tlie  patriarchs  downwards,  is  the  history  of  a  single 
unchanging  affection,  always  acting  on  the  same 
principles,  so  that  each  fact  of  the  past  is  at  the  same 
time  a  symbol  of  the  present  (ix.  9),  or  a  prophecy  of 
the  future  (ii.  15  ;  compare  Josh.  vii.  24).  It  is  worth 
remembering,  in  connection  with  Hosea's  frequent  use 
of  the  early  history,  that  in  last  Lecture  we  saw  reason 
to  believe  that  the  sanctuaries  of  Northern  Israel,  to 
which  he  belonged,  were  the  special  home  of  the  greater 
part  of  the  patriarchal  history,  as  it  is  still  told  in  the 
book  of  Genesis  ;  and  it  is  hardly  disputable  that  some 
episodes  in  that  history  personify  the  stock  of  Israel  or 
individual  tribes,  and  so  treat  them  as  moral  individuals, 
much  in  the  same  Avay  in  which  Hosea  treats  Ephraim. 
The  blessing  of  Jacob  ascribes  a  personal  character  to 
Reuben,  Levi,  and  Simeon,  which  is  the  character  of  the 
tribes,  not  of  individual  sons  of  Jacob,  and  refers  to 
narratives  which  there  are  the  very  strongest  reasons 
for  regarding  as  allegories  of  historical  events  subse- 
quent to  the  settlement  of  the  Hebrews  in  Canaan. 
This  consideration  enables  us  to  see  that  the  allegorical 
treatment  of  Jehovah's  relations  to  Israel  in  the  book  of 
Hosea  would  appear  much  less  strange  and  puzzling  to 
his  contemporaries  than  it  does  to  a  modern  reader. 
Their  current  liabits  of  thought  and  expression  made 
this  way  of  teaching  easy  and  natural.^^ 

Since  Hosea  everywhere  concentrates  his  attention 
on  the  personal  attitude  and  disposition  of  Ephraim 
towards  Jeliovah,  as  constituting^   the  essence  of  the 


LECT.  IV.  OF  JEHOVAH.  167 

national  sin,  lie  is  led  to  look  at  the  sins  of  the  people's 
worship  much  more  closely  than  Amos  does.  Amos 
contents  himself  with  noting  the  acts  of  injustice  and 
immorality  that  were  done  in  the  name  of  religion, 
and  with  urging  that  no  ritual  service  can  be  accept- 
able to  Jehovah  where  civil  righteousness  is  forgotten. 
Beyond  this  he  shows  a  degree  of  indifference  to  all 
practices  of  social  worship  which  is  not  uncharacteristic 
of  an  inhabitant  of  the  desert.  But  when  Israel's 
relation  to  Jehovah  is  conceived  as  a  personal  relation, 
the  intercourse  of  Jehovah  with  His  people  at  the 
sanctuary  naturally  assumes  a  much  larger  significance. 
Acts  of  worship  are  the  direct  embodiment  of  the 
attitude  and  feelings  of  the  worshipper  towards  his 
God,  and  in  them  Hosea  finds  the  plainest  exhibition 
of  Ephraim's  unfaithfulness.  It  is  necessary  to  look 
somewhat  closely  at  the  way  in  which  this  point  is 
developed.  In  speaking  of  Ephraim's  connection  with 
Jehovah  in  the  language  of  human  relationship,  it  was 
open  to  the  prophet  to  make  use  of  various  analogies. 
Jehovah  was  Israel's  King,  but  this  image  did  not  adapt 
itself  to  his  idea.^^  He  required  a  more  personal  relation, 
such  as  is  supplied  by  the  analogy  of  domestic  life. 
The  idea  of  a  family  relation  between  Jehovah  and 
Israel  appears  in  the  book  of  Hosea  in  two  forms.  On 
the  one  hand  Ephraim  is  Jehovah's  son  (xi.  1),  and  this 
is  the  predominant  figure  in  the  latter  part  of  the  book. 
But  in  the  first  three  chapters,  which  present  the  prophet's 
allegory  in  its  most  complete  and  original  form,  the 


1G8  PERSONIFICATION  lect.  \\\ 

nation  or  land  of  Israel  (i.  2 ;  ii.  13)  appears  as  Jehovah's 
spouse.  The  two  figures  are  intimately  connected, 
indeed  in  chapter  i.  they  occur  combined  into  a  single 
parable.  For,  according  to  a  common  Hebrew  figure,  a 
land  or  city  is  the  mother  of  its  inhabitants,  or,  by 
a  slight  variation  of  the  symbolism,  the  stock  of  a 
family  or  clan  is  personified  as  the  mother  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  clan  (2  Sam.  xx.  19  ;  Ezek.  xix.  2  ;  Hosea 
iv.  5).  The  mother  is  the  ideal  unity  of  land  and 
nation,  having  for  her  children  the  actual  members  of 
the  nation  as  they  exist  at  any  particular  time.  Jehovah, 
therefore,  is  at  once  the  father  of  His  people,  and  the 
husband  of  their  ideal  mother.  We  are  not  to  suppose 
that  Hosea  invented  either  form  of  this  imac^e.  Tliat 
the  deity  is  tlie  father  of  his  worshippers,  that  the  tribe 
springs  from  the  stock  of  the  tribal  god,  who  is  wor- 
shipped as  the  progenitor  of  his  people,  is  a  common 
conception  in  heathenism  (comp.  Acts  xvii.  28).  In 
IsTum.  xxi.  29  the  Moabites  are  called  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  Chemosh,  and  even  Malachi  calls  a  heathen 
woman  "the  daugliter  of  a  strange  god"  (Mai.  ii.  11). 
Proper  names  expressive  of  this  idea  are  common 
amono;  the  Semites,  a  familiar  instance  beinff  Benhadad, 
"  son  of  the  god  Hadad."  But  in  heathenism  it'  is 
to  be  observed  that  god-sonship  has  a  physical  sense ; 
the  worshippers  are  of  the  stock  of  their  god,  who 
is  simply  their  great  ancestor,  and  so  is  naturally 
identified  with  their  interests,  and  not  with  those  of  any 
other  tribe.      In  Israel,  however,  the  idea  of  Jehovah's 


OF  ISRAEL.  169 


fatherhood  could  not  take  this  crass  form  in  the  mind 
of  any  one  who  remembered  the  history  of  Jehovah's 
relations  to  His  people.  The  oldest  forefathers  of  the 
Hebrews  in  their  original  seats  beyond  the  Euphrates 
were  not  the  people  of  Jehovah,  but  served  other  gods 
(Josh.  xxiv.  2),  and  Jehovah's  relation  to  Israel  is  not 
of  nature  but  of  grace,  constituted  by  the  divine  act  of 
deliverance  from  Egypt.  And  so,  according  to  Hosea, 
Jehovah  does  not  love  Israel  because  he  is  His  son,  but 
took  him  as  His  son  because  He  loved  him  (xi.  1). 
The  same  contrast  between  natural  and  positive  religion 
is  expressed  in  the  conception  of  Jehovah's  covenant 
w^ith  His  people  ;  for  a  relation  resting  on  a  covenant  is 
not  natural  but  moral.  There  was  no  covenant  between 
Moab  and  Chemosh,  but  only  a  natural  kinship  quite 
independent  of  Moab's  conduct.  But  in  Israel  the  re- 
jection of  Jehovah's  covenant  suspends,  and  but  for 
sovereign  love  would  cancel,  the  privileges  of  sonship. 
The  sonship  of  Israel,  therefore,  must  find  its  expression 
in  filial  obedience,  and  from  this  point  of  view"  the  sin 
of  the  people  is  that  they  have  ceased  to  take  heed 
to  Jehovah  (iv.  10)  and  hearken  to  Him  (ix.  17). 
Ephraim  is  not  a  wise  son  (xiii.  13).  Jehovah  has 
spoken  much  to  him  by  the  ministry  of  His  j)rophets 
(xii.  10),  but  though  He  should  write  for  him  a  myriad 
of  precepts,  they  would  seem  but  a  strange  thing  to  this 
foolish  child  (viii.  12). 

But    though    Hosea     dwells    on    the    sonship    of 
Ephraim  with  great  tenderness,  especially  in  speaking 


170  ISRAEL  AS  lect.  iv. 

of  the  cliildliood  of  the  nation,  the  age  of  its  divine 
education  (xi.  1  scc^),  this  analogy  does  not  exhaust  the 
whole  depth  of  Israel's  relation  to  Jehovah.  In  ancient 
society  the  attitude  of  the  son  to  the  father,  especially 
that  of  the  adult  son  employed  in  his  father  s  business, 
has  a  certain  element  of  servitude  (Mai.  iii.  17).  The 
son  honours  his  father  as  the  servant  does  his  master 
(MaL  i.  6.  ;  Exod.  xx.  12).  Even  now  among  the  Arabs 
the  grown-up  son  and  the  slave  of  the  house  do  much 
the  same  menial  services,  and  feel  much  the  same 
measure  of  constraint  in  the  presence  of  the  head 
of  the  house.  It  is  only  towards  his  little  ones 
that  the  father  shows  that  tenderness  which  Hosea 
speaks  of  in  describing  the  childhood  of  Ephraim.  And 
so  the  whole  fulness  of  Jehovah's  love  to  His  people, 
and  the  way  in  wdiich  Israel  has  proved  unfaithful  to 
that  love,  can  be  fitly  brought  out  only  in  the  still  more 
intimate  relation  of  the  husband  to  his  spouse. 

In  looking  at  the  allegory  of  Jehovah's  marriage 
with  mother-Israel,  or  with  the  mother-land,  we  must 
again  begin  by  considering  the  current  ideas  which 
served  to  suggest  such  a  conception.  Alike  in  Israel 
and  among  its  heathen  neighbours,  the  w^ord  Baal,  that 
is  "  Lord "  or  "  Owner,"  was  a  common  appellative  of 
the  national  Deity.  Instead  of  the  proper  names  com- 
pounded with  Jehovah,  which  are  common  from  the 
time  of  Elijah,  we  frequently  find  in  old  Israel  forms 
compounded  with  Baal  which  are  certainly  not 
heathenish.     When  we  meet  with  a  son  of  Saul  named 


LECT.  IV.  JEHOVAH'S  SPOUSE.  171 

Ish-Baal,  a  grandson  Meri-Baal,  both  names  meaning 
"Baal's  man,"  while  David  in  like  manner  gives  to 
one  of  his  sons  the  name  of  Beeliada,  "  Baa?  knoweth," 
we  may  be  sure  that  Baal  is  here  a  title  of  the  God  of 
Israel.-^'-^  In  Hosea's  time  the  worshipping  people  still 
addressed  Jehovah  as  Baali,  "my  Lord,"  and  the 
Baalim  of  whom  he  often  speaks  (ii.  13  ;  xiii.  1,  2)  are 
no  other  than  the  golden  calves,  the  recognised  symbols 
of  Jehovah.  Now,  among  the  Semites  the  husband  is 
regarded  as  the  lord  or  owner  of  his  wife  (1  Pet.  iii.  6), 
whom  in  fact,  according  to  early  law,  he  purchases  from 
her  father  for  a  price  (Exod.  xxi.  8  ;  xxii.  Vl)}^  The 
address  Baali  is  used  by  the  wife  to  her  husband  as 
well  as  by  the  nation  to  its  God,  and  so  in  an  early 
stage  of  thought,  when  similarities  of  expression  con- 
stantly form  the  basis  of  identifications  of  idea,  it  lay 
very  near  to  think  of  the  God  as  the  husband  of  the 
worshipping  nationality,  or  of  the  mother-land.-^^  It  is 
not  at  all  likely  that  this  conception  was  in  form  original 
to  Hosea,  or  even  peculiar  to  Israel  ;  such  developed- 
religious  allegory  as  that  which  makes  the  national  God, 
not  only  father  of  the  people,  but  husband  of  the  land 
their  mother,  has  its  familiar  home  in  natural  religions.. 
In  these  religions  we  find  similar  conceptions,  in  which, 
however,  as  in  the  case  of  the  fatherhood  of  the  deity, 
the  idea  is  taken  in  a  crass  physical  sense.  Marriage  of 
female  worshippers  with  the  godhead  was  a  common 
notion  among  the  Phoenicians  and  Babylonians,  and  in 
the  latter  case  was  connected  with  immoral  practices 


172  ISRAEL  AS  lect.  iv. 

akin  to  tliose  that  defiled  the  sanctuaries  of  Israel  in 
Hosea's  day.^^  It  even  seems  possible  to  find  some  trace 
in  Semitic  heathenism  of  the  idea  of  marriage  of  the 
Baal  with  the  land  which  he  fertilises  by  sunshine  and 
rain.  Semitic  deities,  as  we  saw  in  Lecture  I.  (p.  26), 
are  conceived  as  productive  powers,  and  so  form  pairs 
of  male  and  female  principles.  Heaven  and  Earth  are 
such  a  pair,  as  is  well  known  from  Greek  mythology;  and, 
though  Baal  and  'Ashtoreth  are  more  often  represented 
as  astral  powers  (Sun  and  Moon,  Jupiter  and  Venus), 
it  is  certain  that  fertilising  showers  were  one  manifesta- 
tion of  Baal's  life-giving  power.  Even  the  Moham- 
medan Arabs  retained  the  name  of  Baal  {haV)  for  land 
watered  by  the  rains  of  heaven.  The  land  that  brings 
forth  fruit  under  these  influences  could  not  fail  to  be 
thought  of  as  his  spouse;  and,  in  fact,  we  have  an 
Arabic  word  (^atliary)  which  seems  to  show  that  the 
fertility  produced  by  the  rains  of  Baal  was  associated 
with  the  name  of  his  wife  'Ashtoreth.^^  If  this  be  so,  it 
follows  that  in  point  of  form  the  marriage  of  Jehovah 
with  Israel  corresponded  to  a  common  Semitic  concep- 
tion, and  we  may  well  suppose  that  the  corrupt  mass  of 
Israel  interpreted  it  in  reference  to  the  fertility  of  the 
goodly  land,  watered  by  the  dews  of  heaven  (Deut.  xi. 
11),  on  principles  that  suggested  no  higher  thoughts  of 
God  than  were  entertained  by  their  heathen  neighbours. 
This  argument  is  not  a  mere  speculation  ;  it  gives  us 
a  key  to  understand  what  Hosea  tells  us  of  the  actual 
religious  ideas  of  his  people.     For  we  learn  from  liim 


LECT.  IV.  JEHOVAH'S  SPOUSE.  173 

that  tlie  Israelites  worshipped  the  Baalim  or  golden 
calves  under  just  such  a  point  of  view  as  our  discussion 
suggests.  They  were  looked  upon  as  the  authors  of  the 
fertility  of  the  land  and  nothing  more  (ii.  5) ;  in  other 
words,  they  were  to  Israel  precisely  what  the  heathen 
Baalim  were  to  the  Canaanites,  natural  productive 
powers.  We  have  already  seen  that  a  tendency  to 
degrade  Jehovah  to  the  level  of  a  Canaanite  Baal 
had  always  been  the  great  danger  of  Israel's  religion, 
when  the  moral  fibre  of  the  nation  was  not  hardened 
by  contest  with  foreign  invaders,  and  that  in  early  times 
the  reaction  against  this  way  of  thought  had  been 
mainly  associated  with  a  sense  of  national  unity,  and 
with  the  conception  of  Jehovah  as  the  leader  of  the 
hosts  of  Israel.  These  patriotic  and  martial  feelings 
were  still  strong  during  the  Syrian  wars  ;  and  in  the 
time  of  Amos,  in  spite  of  the  many  Canaanite  corrup- 
tions of  the  sanctuaries,  Jehovah  was  yet  pre-eminently 
the  God  of  battles,  who  led  Israel  to  victory  over  its 
enemies.  But  a  generation  of  peace  and  luxury  had 
greatly  sapped  the  warlike  spirit  of  the  nation,  while  the 
disorders  of  the  state  had  loosened  the  bonds  of  national 
unity.  The  name  of  Jehovah  was  no  longer  the  rally- 
ing cry  of  all  who  loved  the  freedom  and  integrity 
of  Israel,  and  the  help  which  Ephraim  had  been  wont 
to  seek  from  Jehovah  was  now  sought  from  Egypt 
or  Assyria.  Jehovah  was  not  formally  abjured  for 
Canaanite  gods;  but  in  the  decay  of  all  the  nobler 
impulses  of  national  life  He  sank  in  popular  conception 


174  ISRAEL  THE  SPOUSE  lect.  iv. 

to  their  level;  in  essential  character  as  well  as  in  name 
the  calves  of  the  local  sanctuaries  had  become  Canaanite 
Baalim,  mere  sources  of  the  physical  fertility  of  the 
land.  And  that  this  view  of  their  power  was  embodied 
in  sexual  analogies  of  a  crass  and  physical  kind,  such 
as  we  have  found  to  exist  among  the  heathen  Semites, 
is  proved  by  the  prevalence  of  religious  prostitution  and 
widespread  disregard  of  the  laws  of  chastity,  precisely 
identical  with  the  abominations  of  'Ashtoreth  amons^ 
the  Phoenicians,  and  accompanied  by  the  same  symbol- 
ism of  the  sacred  tree,  which  expressed  the  conception 
of  the  deity  as  a  principle  of  physical  fertility  (Hosea  iv. 
13  scci). 

Thus,  in  looking  at  Hosea's  doctrine  of  the  marriage 
of  Jehovah  with  Israel,  we  must  remember  that  the 
prophet  was  not  introducing  an  entirely  new  form  of 
religious  symbolism.  The  popular  religion  was  full  of 
externally  similar  ideas  ;  the  true  personality  and  moral 
attributes  of  Jehovah  were  lost  in  a  maze  of  allegory 
derived  from  the  sexual  processes  of  physical  life  ;  and 
the  degrading  effects  of  such  a  way  of  thought  were 
visible  in  universal  licentiousness  and  a  disregard  of 
the  holiest  obligations  of  domestic  purity.  In  such  cir- 
cumstances, we  might  expect  to  find  the  prophet  casting 
aside  the  whole  notion  of  a  marriage  of  Jehovah,  and 
falling  back  like  Amos  on  the  transcendency  of  the 
Creator  and  Euler  of  the  moral  universe.  But  he  does 
not  do  so.  Instead  of  rejecting  the  current  symbolism 
he  appropriates  it ;  but  lie  does  so  in  a  way  that  lifts  it 


LECT.  IV. 


OF  JEHOVAH.  175 


wholly  out  of  the  sphere  of  nature  religion  and  makes 
it  the  vehicle  of  the  profoundest  spiritual  truths. 
Jehovah  is  the  husband  of  His  nation.  But  the  essential 
basis  of  the  marriage  relation  is  not  physical,  but  moral.  ^ 
It  is  a  relation  of  inmost  affection,  and  lays  upon  the  ■ 
spouse  a  duty  of  conjugal  fidelity  which  the  popular 
religion  daily  violated.  The  betrothal  of  Jehovah  to 
Israel  is  but  another  aspect  of  the  covenant  already 
spoken  of;  it  is  a  betrothal  "in  righteousness  and  in  judg- 
ment, in  kindness  and  in  love,"  a  betrothal  that  demands 
the  true  knowledge  of  Jehovah  (ii.  19,  20).  A  union  in 
which  these  conditions  are  absent  is  not  marriage,  but 
illicit  love ;  and  so  the  Baalim  or  local  symbols  of 
Jehovah,  with  which  the  nation  held  no  moral  fellow- 
ship, worshipping  them  merely  as  sources  of  physical 
life  and  growth,  are  not  the  true  spouse  of  Israel ;  they 
are  the  nation's  paramours,  and  their  worship  is  infidelity 
to  Jehovah.  There  is  no  feature  in  Hosea's  prophecy 
which  distinguishes  him  from  earlier  prophets  so  sharply 
as  his  attitude  to  the  golden  calves,  the  local  symbols 
of  Jehovah  adored  in  the  Northern  sanctuaries.  Elijah 
and  Elisha  had  no  quarrel  with  the  traditional  worship 
of  their  nation.  Even  Amos  never  speaks  in  condem- 
nation of  the  calves.  But  in  Hosea's  teaching  they 
suddenly  appear  as  the  very  root  of  Israel's  sin  and 
misery.  It  is  perfectly  clear  that  in  the  time  of  Hosea, 
as  in  that  of  Amos,  the  popular  worship  was  nominally 
Jehovah  worship.  The  oath  of  the  worshippers  at  Gil- 
gal  and  Bethel  was  by  the  life  of  Jehovah  (iv.  15) ;  the 


176  HOSEA  AND  lect.  iv. 

feasts  of  the  Baalim  were  Jeliovah's  feasts  (ii.  11;  13,  ix. 
5) ;  tlie  sanctuary  was  Jehovah's  liouse  (ix.  4),  the  sacri- 
fices His  offerings  (viii.  13).  But  to  Hosea's  judgment 
this  ostensible  Jehovah  worship  is  really  the  worship 
of  other  gods  (iii.  1).  With  the  calves  Jehovah  has 
nothing  in  common.  He  is  the  living  God  (i.  10),  the 
calves  are  mere  idols,  the  work  of  craftsmen  (xiii.  2) ;  and 
the  nation  which  calls  the  work  of  its  hands  a  god 
(xiv.  3)  breaks  its  marriage  vow  with  Jehovah  and 
loves  a  strangjer. 

If  the  prophecy  of  Hosea  stood  alone  it  would  be 
reasonable  to  think  that  this  attack  on  the  images  of 
the  popular  religion  was  simply  based  on  the  second 
commandment.  But  when  we  contrast  it  with  the 
absolute  silence  of  earlier  prophets  we  can  hardly  accept 
this  explanation  as  adequate.  Amos  is  as  zealous  for 
Jehovah's  commandments  as  Hosea  ;  and,  if  the  one 
prophet  condemns  the  worship  of  the  calves  as  the 
fundamental  evidence  of  Israel's  infidelity,  while  the 
other,  a  few  years  before,  passes  it  by  in  silence,  it  is 
fair  to  conclude  that  the  matter  appeared  to  Hosea  in  a 
much  more  practical  light  than  it  did  to  Amos.  Our 
analysis  of  Hosea's  line  of  thought  enables  us  to 
understand  how  this  was  so.  Amos  judges  of  the  reli- 
gious state  of  the  nation  by  its  influence  on  social  rela- 
tions and  the  administration  of  public  justice.  But 
Hosea  places  the  essence  of  religion  in  personal  fidelity 
to  Jehovah  and  a  just  conception  of  His  covenant  of 
love  with  Israel.    The  worship  of  the  popular  sanctuaries 


LECT.  IV.  THE  CALF-  WORSHIP.  Yll 

ignored  all  this,  setting  in  its  place  a  conception  of  the 
Godhead  which  did  not  rise  above  the  level  of  heathen- 
ism. The  attachment  of  Israel  to  the  golden  calves  was 
not  the  pure  and  elevated  affection  of  a  spouse  for  her 
husband.  It  was  in  its  very  nature  a  carnal  love,  and 
therefore  its  objects  were  false  lovers,  who  had  nothing 
in  common  with  the  true  husband  of  the  nation.  Hosea 
does  not  condemn  the  worship  of  the  calves  because 
idols  are  forbidden  by  the  law  ;  he  excludes  the  calves 
from  the  spliere  of  true  religion  because  the  worship 
which  they  receive  has  no  affinity  to  the  true  attitude 
of  Israel  to  Jehovah.  By  this  judgment  he  proves  the 
depth  of  his  religious  insight ;  for  the  whole  history  of 
religion  shows  that  no  truth  is  harder  to  realise  than 
that  a  worship  morally  false  is  in  no  sense  the  worship 
of  the  true  God  (Matt.  vi.  24  ;  vii.  22). 

As  we  follow  out  the  various  aspects  oi  Hosea's 
teaching  we  see  with  increasing  clearness  that  in  all  its 
parts  it  can  be  traced  back  to  a  single  fundamental  idea. 
The  argument  of  his  prophecy  is  an  argument  of  the 
heart,  not  of  the  head.  His  whole  revelation  of  Jehovah 
is  the  revelation  of  a  love  wliich  can  be  conceived  under 
human  analo2fies,  and  whose  workin^js  are  to  be  under- 
stood  not  by  abstract  reasonings  but  by  the  sympathy 
of  a  heart  which  has  sounded  the  depths  of  human 
affection,  and  knows  in  its  own  experience  what  love 
demands  of  its  object.  One  of  the  first  points  that 
struck  us  in  Hosea's  impassioned  delineation  of  Israel's 
infidelity,  in  the  inward  sympathy  with  which  he  mourns 

9 


178  PERSONAL  HISTORY  lect.  iv. 

over  his  nation's  fall,  yet  holding  fast  the  assurance  that 
even  in  that  fall  the  love  of  Jehovah  to  His  people 
shall  find  its  highest  vindication,  was  that  Jehovah's 
affection  to  Israel  is  an  affection  that  burns  within  the 
prophet's  own  soul,  which  he  has  not  learned  to  speak  of 
by  rote  but  has  comprehended  through  the  experience 
of  his  own  life.  It  is  a  special  characteristic  of  the 
Hebrew  prophets  that  they  identify  themselves  with 
Jehovah's  word  and  will  so  completely  that  their  person- 
ality seems  often  to  be  lost  in  His.  In  no  prophet  is 
this  characteristic  more  notable  than  in  Hosea,  for  in 
virtue  of  the  peculiar  inwardness  of  his  whole  argument 
his  very  heart  seems  to  throb  in  unison  with  the  heart 
of  Jehovah.  Amos  became  a  prophet  when  he  heard 
the  thunder  of  Jehovah's  voice  of  judgment;  Hosea 
learned  to  speak  of  Jehovah's  love,  and  of  the  workings 
of  that  love  in  chastisement  and  in  grace  towards 
Israel's  infidelity,  through  sore  experiences  of  his  own 
life,  through  a  human  love  spurned  but  not  changed  to 
bitterness,  despised  yet  patient  and  unselfish  to  the  end, 
which  opened  to  him  the  secrets  of  that  Heart  whose 
tenderness  is  as  infinite  as  its  holiness. 

In  the  first  chapters  of  the  book  of  Hosea  the  faith- 
lessness of  Israel  to  Jehovah,  the  long-suffering  of  God, 
the  moral  discipline  of  sorrow  and  tribulation  by  which 
He  will  yet  bring  back  His  erring  people,  and  betroth 
it  to  Himself  for  ever  in  righteousness,  truth,  and  love, 
are  depicted  under  the  figure  of  the  relation  of  a 
husband  to  his  erring  spouse.      This  parable  was  not 


LECT.  IV.  OF  HOSEA.  179 

invented  by  Hosea ;  it  is  drawn,  as  we  are  expressly- 
told,  from  liis  own  life.  The  Divine  Word  first  became 
audible  in  tlie  prophet's  breast  when  he  was  guided  by 
a  mysterious  providence  to  espouse  Gomer,  the  daughter 
of  Diblaim,  who  proved  an  unfaithful  wife  and  became 
the  mother  of  children  born  in  infidelity  (i.  2,  3).  The 
details  of  this  painful  story  are  very  lightly  touched ; 
they  are  never  alluded  to  in  that  part  of  the  book  which 
has  the  character  of  public  preaching — in  chapter  i.  the 
prophet  speaks  of  himself  in  the  third  person  ;  and  as 
Hosea  gave  names  to  the  children  of  Gomer,  names  of 
symbolic  form,  to  each  of  which  is  attached  a  brief 
prophetic  lesson  (i.  4,  5;  6,  7;  8  scq.),  it  is  plain  that 
he  concealed  the  shame  of  their  mother  and  acknow- 
ledged her  children  as  his  own,  burying  his  bitter 
sorrow   in   his    own    heart.      But   this   long^-sufferinoj 

o  o 

tenderness  was  of  no  avail.  In  chapter  iii.  we  learn 
that  Gomer  at  length  left  her  husband,  and  fell,  under 
circumstances  of  which  Hosea  spares  the  recital,  into  a 
state  of  misery,  from  which  the  prophet,  still  following 
her  with  compassionate  affection,  had  to  buy  her  back 
at  the  price  of  a  slave.  He  could  not  restore  her  to  her 
old  place  in  his  house  and  to  the  rights  of  a  faithful 
spouse  ;  but  he  brought  her  home  and  watched  over 
her  for  many  days,  secluding  her  from  temptation,  with 
a  loyalty  which  showed  that  his  heart  was  still  true  to 
her.^^  These  scanty  details  embrace  all  that  we  know  of 
the  history  of  Hosea's  life  ;  everything  else  in  chapters 
i.  and  iii.,  together  with  the  whole  of  chapter  ii.,  is  pure 


180  PERSONAL  HISTORY  lect.  iv. 

allegory,  depicting  the  relations  of  Jehovah  and  Israel 
under  the  analogy  suggested  by  the  prophet's  experience, 
but  working  out  that  analogy  in  a  quite  independent 
way. 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  any  sound  judg- 
ment can  doubt  that  Hosea's  account  of  his  married  life 
is  literal  history  ;  it  is  told  with  perfect  simplicity,  and 
yet  with  touching  reserve.  We  feel  that  it  would  not 
have  been  told  at  all,  but  that  it  was  necessary  to 
explain  how  Hosea  became  a  prophet,  how  he  was  led 
to  that  fundamental  conception  of  Jehovah's  love  and 
Israel's  infidelity  which  lies  at  the  root  of  his  whole 
prophetic  argument.  Those  who  shrink  from  accepting 
the  narrative  in  its  literal  sense  are  obliged  to  assume 
that  Hosea  was  first  taught  by  revelation  to  think  of 
Jehovah's  relation  to  Israel  as  a  marriage,  and  that  then, 
the  better  to  impress  this  thought  on  his  auditors,  he 
translated  it  into  a  fable,  of  which  he  made  himself  the 
chief  actor,  clothing  himself  with  an  imaginary  shame 
which  could  only  breed  derision.  But  in  truth,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  the  history  of  Hosea's  life  is  related 
mainly  in  the  third  person,  and  forms  no  part  of  his 
preaching  to  Israel.  It  is  a  history  that  lies  behind  his 
public  ministry ;  and  we  are  told  that  it  was  through 
his  marriage  with  Gomer-bath-Diblaim — whose  very 
name  shows  her  to  be  a  real  person,  not  a  mere  allegory 
— that  Hosea  first  realised  the  truths  which  he  was 
commissioned  to  preach.  The  events  recorded  in  chap.  i. 
are  not  Hosea's  first  message  to  Israel,  but  Jehovah's 


LECT.  IV.  OF  HO  SEA.  181 

first  lesson  to  the  prophet's  soul.  God  speaks  in  the 
events  of  history  and  the  experiences  of  human  life. 
He  spoke  to  Amos  in  the  thundering  march  of  the 
Assyrian,  and  he  spoke  to  Hosea  in  the  shame  that 
blighted  his  liome.^^ 

Apart  from  the  still  surviving  influence  of  the  old 
system  of  allegorical  interpretation,  which,  though  no 
longer  recognised  in  principle,  continues  to  linger  in 
some  corners  of  modern  interpretation,  the  chief  thing 
that  has  prevented  a  right  understanding  of  the  opening 
chapters  of  our  book  is  a  false  interpretation  of  chap.  i.  2, 
as  if  Hosea  meant  us  to  believe  that  under  divine  com- 
mand he  married  a  woman  whom  he  knew  from  the 
first  to  be  of  profligate  character.  But  the  point  of  the 
allegory  is  that  Gomer's  infidelity  after  marriage  is  a 
figure  of  Israel's  departure  from  the  covenant  God,  and 
the  struggle  of  Hosea's  affection  with  the  burning  sense 
of  shame  and  grief  when  he  found  his  wife  unfaithful 
is  altogether  inconceivable  unless  his  first  love  had 
been  pure,  and  full  of  trust  in  the  purity  of  its  object. 
Hosea  did  not  imderstand  in  advance  the  deep  prophetic 
lesson  which  Jehovah  desired  to  teach  him  by  these  sad 
experiences.  It  was  in  the  struggle  and  bitterness  of 
his  spirit  in  the  midst  of  his  great  unhaj)piness  that  he 
learned  to  comprehend  the  secret  of  Jehovah's  heart  in 
his  dealings  with  faithless  Israel,  and  recognised  the 
unhappiness  of  his  married  life  as  no  meaningless 
calamity,  but  the  ordinance  of  Jehovah,  which  called 
him  to  the  work  of  a  prophet.     This  he  expresses  by 


182  THE  CALL  lect.  iv. 

saying^  that  it  was  in  directing  liim  to  marry  Gomer 
that  Jehovah  first  spoke  to  him  (comp.  Jer.  xxxii.  8, 
where  in  like  manner  the  prophet  tells  ns  that  he  recog- 
nised an  incident  in  his  life  as  embodying  a  divine  word 
after  the  event).  It  was  through  the  experience  of  his 
own  life,  which  gave  him  so  deep  an  insight  into  the 
spiritual  aspect  of  the  marriage  tie,  that  Hosea  was  able 
to  develop  with  inmost  sympathy  his  doctrine  of  the 
moral  union  of  Jehovah  to  Israel,  and  to  transform  a 
conception  which  in  its  current  form  seemed  the  very 
negation  of  spiritual  faith,  full  of  associations  of  the 
merest  nature  worship,  into  a  doctrine  of  holy  love,  freed 
from  all  carnal  alloy,  and  separating  Jehovah  for  ever 
from  the  idols  with  which  His  name  had  till  then  been 
associated. 

The  possession  of  a  single  true  thought  about  Jeho- 
vah, not  derived  from  current  religious  teachinsf,  but 
springing  up  in  the  soul  as  a  word  from  Jehovah  Him- 
self, is  enough  to  constitute  a  prophet,  and  lay  on  him 
the  duty  of  speaking  to  Israel  what  he  has  learned  of 
Israel's  God.  But  the  truth  made  known  to  Hosea 
could  not  be  exhausted  in  a  sinsjle  messac^e,  like  that 
delivered  to  Amos.  As  the  prophet's  own  love  to  his 
wife  shaped  and  coloured  his  whole  life,  so  Jehovah's 
love  to  faithless  Israel  contained  within  itself  the  key 
to  all  Israel's  history.  The  past,  the  present,  and  the 
future  took  a  new  aspect  to  the  prophet  in  the  light  of 
his  great  spiritual  discovery.  Hosea  had  become  a 
prophet,  not  for  a  moment,  but  for  all  his  life. 


LECT.  IV.  OF  HO  SEA.  183 

We  have  already  seen  tliat  the  greater  part  of  the 
book  of  Hosea,  from  chap.  iv.  onwards — the  only  part 
that  has  the  form  of  direct  address  to  his  people — 
appears  to  date  from  the  period  of  increasing  anarchy, 
while  the  briefer  prophecies  in  chap,  i.,  associated  with 
the  names  of  Gomer's  three  children,  belong  to  the  reign 
of  Jeroboam  II.  It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  Hosea 
was  conscious  of  his  prophetic  calling  for  some  years 
before  he  appeared  as  a  public  preacher  ;  and  this  fact 
we  can  well  understand  in  a  nature  so  poetically  sensi- 
tive, and  in  connection  with  the  personal  circumstances 
that  first  made  him  a  prophet.  But  it  was  impossible 
for  him  to  be  altogether  silent.  He  felt  that  he  and 
his  family  were  living  lessons  of  Jehovah  to  Israel,  and 
in  this  feeling  he  gave  to  the  three  children  symbolical 
names,  to  each  of  which  a  short  prophetic  lesson  was 
attached.  In  this  he  was  followed  by  Isaiah,  whose 
sons,  Mahar-shalal-hash-baz  and  Shear-jashub,  also  bore 
names  expressive  of  fundamental  points  in  the  prophet's 
teachinoj. 

The  eldest  of  Gomer's  sons  was  named  Jezreel. 
"  Eor  yet  a  little  while,"  saith  Jehovah,  "  and  I  will 
punish  the  house  of  Jehu  for  the  sin  of  Jezreel,  and  will 
cause  to  cease  the  kingdom  of  the  house  of  Israel.  And 
in  that  day  I  will  break  the  bow  of  Israel  in  the  valley 
of  Jezreel" — the  natural  battlefield  of  the  land.  To 
Hosea,  as  to  Amos,  the  fall  of  the  house  of  Jehu  and 
the  fall  of  the  nation  appear  as  one  thing  ;  both  pro- 
phets, indeed,  appear  to  have  looked  for  the  overthrow 


184  HO  SEA'S  VIEW  OF  THE  lect.  iv. 

of  the  reigning  dynasty,  not  by  intestine  conspiracy,  as 
actually  happened,  but  at  the  hand  of  the  destroying 
invader.  It  was  fitting,  therefore,  that  the  great  sin  of 
the  reigning  dynasty  should  hold  the  first  place  in  the 
record  of  the  nation's  defection.  To  Hosea  that  sin  begins 
with  the  bloodshed  of  Jezreel,  the  treacherous  slaugliter 
of  the  house  of  Ahab.  The  very  existence  of  the  ruling 
dynasty  rests  on  a  crime  which  cries  for  vengeance. 

That  Hosea  judges  thus  of  a  revolution  accomplished 
with  the  active  participation  of  older  prophets  is  a  fact 
well  worthy  of  attention.  It  places  in  the  strongest 
light  the  limitations  that  characterise  all  Old  Testament 
revelation.  It  shows  us  that  we  can  look  for  no 
mechanical  uniformity  in  the  teaching  of  successive 
prophets.  Elisha  saw  and  approved  one  side  of  Jehu's 
revolution.  He  looked  on  it  only  as  the  death-blow  to 
Baal  worship ;  but  Hosea  sees  another  side,  and  con- 
dernns  as  emphatically  as  Elisha  approved.  In  the 
forefront  of  his  condemnation  he  places  the  bloodshed, 
still  unatoned,  which,  according  to  the  view  that  runs 
through  all  the  Old  Testament  and  was  familiar  to  every 
Hebrew,  continued  to  cry  for  vengeance  from  generation 
to  generation.  But  we  must  not  suppose  that  in  Hosea's 
judgment  all  would  have  been  well  if  the  house  of  Omri 
had  retained  the  throne.  The  Northern  kingship  in 
itself,  and  quite  apart  from  the  question  of  the  parti- 
cular dynasty,  is  a  defection  from  Jehovah — "They  have 
made  kings,  but  not  by  Me ;  they  have  made  princes, 
and  I  knew  it  not "  (viii.  4)  ;  "  Where  now  is  thy  king 


LECT.  IV.  NORTHERN  KINGSHIP.  185 

to  save  thee  in  all  thy  cities,  and  thy  judges,  of  whom 
thou  saidst,  Give  me  a  king  and  princes  ?  I  gave  thee 
a  king  in  Mine  anger,  and  take  him  away  in  My  wrath  " 
(xiii.  10,  11).  The  kingdom  of  Ephraim,  in  all  its 
dynasties,  rests  on  a  principle  of  godless  anarchy. 
What  wonder,  then,  that  the  nation  devours  her  judges 
like  a  fiery  oven  :  ^^  all  their  kings  are  fallen  (vii.  7),  the 
monarchy  of  Samaria  is  swept  away  as  foam  upon  the 
water  (x.  7).  The  ideal  which  Hosea  holds  up  in  con- 
trast to  the  unhallowed  dynasties  of  the  North  is  the 
rule  of  the  house  of  David.  In  the  days  of  restoration 
the  people  shall  inquire  after  Jehovah  their  God,  and 
David  their  king  (iii.  5).  JSTow,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  Amos,  who  was  himself  a  man  of  Judah,  should 
represent  the  re-establishment  of  the  ancient  kingdom 
of  David  as  part  of  the  final  restoration  ;  but  when 
Hosea,  a  Northern  prophet,  gives  utterance  to  the  same 
thought,  he  places  himself  in  striking  contrast  to  all  his 
predecessors,  who  never  dreamed  of  a  return  of  Ephraim 
to  the  yoke  cast  off  in  the  days  of  the  first  Jeroboam. 
No  doubt  there  were  many  things  which  made  such  a 
thought  natural,  at  least  in  the  days  of  anarchy  that 
followed  the  death  of  Jeroboam  11.  The  stability  of 
the  Davidic  throne  stood  in  marked  contrast  to  the  civil 
discords  and  constant  changes  of  dynasty  to  which  the 
prophet  so  often  alludes  ;  and,  though  he  speaks  of 
Judah  as  sharing  Israel's  sin  and  Israel's  fall  (v.  5,  10, 
13,  14  ;  viii.  14),  Hosea  regards  the  corruption  of  the 
Southern  kingdom  as  less  ancient  (xi  12  ;  Heh.,  xii.  1) 


186  THE  RETURN  TO  lect.  iv. 

and  deep-rooted  (iv.  15),  and,  in  his  earlier  prophecies 
at  least,  excludes  Judah  from  the  utter  destruction  of 
the  North.  When  Jehovah's  mercy  is  withdrawn  from 
Israel  He  will  yet  save  Judah,  though  not  by  war  and 
battle  as  in  days  gone  by  (i.  7).  Hosea  is  so  essentially 
a  man  of  feeling,  and  not  of  strict  logic,  that  it  would 
be  fruitless  to  attempt  to  form  an  exact  picture  of  his 
attitude  to  Judah,  expressed  as  it  is  in  a  series  of  brief 
allusions  scattered  over  a  number  of  years.  In  his  last 
picture  of  Israel's  restoration  the  house  of  David  is  not 
mentioned  at  all,  and  images  of  political  glory  have  no 
place  in  his  conception  of  the  nation's  true  happiness. 
One  part  of  the  ideal  of  Amos  is  the  resubjugation 
of  the  heathen  once  tributary  to  David  ;  he  looks  for  a 
return  of  the  ancient  days  of  victorious  warfare.  But 
Hosea  has  altogether  laid  aside  the  old  martial  idea 
as  we  found  it  expressed  in  Deut.  xxxiii.  The  fenced 
cities  of  Judah  are  a  sin,  and  shall  be  destroyed  by  fire 
(viii.  14).  The  deliverance  of  Judah  is  not  to  be 
wrought  by  bow  or  sword  (i.  7) ;  repentant  Ephraim 
says,  "  We  will  not  ride  upon  horses  "  (xiv.  3).  His 
picture  of  the  future,  therefore,  lacks  all  the  features 
that  give  strength  to  an  earthly  state ;  it  reads  like  a 
return  to  Paradise  (ii.  21  sca[.  ;  xiv.).  In  such  a  picture 
the  kingship  of  David  is  little  more  than  a  figure.  The 
return  of  David's  kingdom,  as  it  actually  was,  would  by 
no  means  have  corresponded  with  his  ideal ;  but  the  name 
of  David  is  the  historical  symbol  of  a  united  Israel. 
To  Hosea  the    unity  of  Israel  is  a  thing  of  pro- 


LECT.  IV.  ^'  DA  VID  THEIR  KING."  187 

found  significance.  His  whole  prophecy,  as  we  know, 
is  penetrated  by  the  conception  of  the  people  of 
Jehovah  as  a  moral  person ;  the  unity  of  Israel  and 
the  unity  of  God  are  the  basis  of  his  whole  doctrine 
of  religion  as  a  personal  bond  of  love  and  fidelity.  Thus 
the  political  divisions  of  Israel  on  the  one  hand,  and 
on  the  other  the  idolatry  which  broke  up  the  oneness  of 
Israel's  God,  are  set  forth  by  Hosea  as  parallel  breaches 
of  covenant  ;  when  he  mentions  the  one  he  instinctively 
joins  the  other  with  it  (viii.  4  ;  x.  1  seq.).  In  contrast  to 
this  twofold  defection  and  division  "  Jehovah  their  God 
and  David  their  king  "  appear  in  natural  connection. 

One  sees  from  all  this  that  in  Hosea's  hands  the  old 
national  theory  of  the  religion  of  Jehovah  is  on  the 
point  of  breaking  up,  and  that  new  hopes  take  its  place. 
This  was  indeed  inevitable.  The  ideal  of  a  victorious 
and  happy  nation,  dwelling  apart  in  a  goodly  land  and 
secure  from  invasion  in  Jehovah's  blessinc^  on  its  war- 
like  prowess,  as  we  find  it  in  the  prophecies  of  Balaam 
or  the  Blessing  of  Moses,  was  hopelessly  shattered  by 
the  first  contact  with  a  great  conquering  empire  such 
as  Assyria.  Amos  was  the  first  to  realise  that  the 
advance  of  Assyria  meant  the  ruin  of  Israel  as  it 
actually  was,  but  he  did  not  see  that  the  new  move- 
ments of  history  meant  more  than  speedy  captivity, 
that  Israel  could  never  again  be  restored  on  its  old 
footing.  To  him  it  still  seems  possible  tliat  the  rem- 
nant of  the  nation,  purified  by  sifting  judgment,  may 
return  to  Canaan  and  restore  the  ancient  kingdom  of 


188  HO  SEA'S  LECT.  iv. 

David.  His  picture  of  the  last  days  is  no  more  than  a 
glorified  image  of  the  best  days  of  the  past,  when  the 
flow  of  Jehovah's  blessings,  victory  in  war  and  pros- 
perous seasons  in  time  of  peace,  is  renewed  in  fuller 
measure  to  a  nation  purged  of  sinners.  The  realism  of 
this  picture  has  no  counterpart  in  Hosea's  eschatology. 
The  total  dissolution  of  national  life  which  he  foresees 
is  not  a  mere  sifting  judgment,  but  the  opening  of  an 
altogether  new  era.  Hosea  never  drawls  a  distinction 
between  the  sinners  who  must  perish  in  captivity  and 
the  righteous  remnant  which  shall  return.  To  him 
Ephraim  is  not  a  mingled  society  of  the  righteous  and 
the  wicked,  but  a  single  moral  person  which  has  sinned 
and  must  repent  as  one  man.  Amos  does  not  look  for 
national  repentance ;  the  wicked  remain  wicked,  and 
perish  in  their  sins,  the  righteous  return  in  their  old 
righteousness,  and  so  the  new  Israel  is  just  a  continua- 
tion of  the  old.  But  to  Hosea  the  repentance  of  the 
nation  is  a  resurrection  from  the  dead.  "  Come  and 
let  us  return  to  Jehovah,  for  He  hath  torn  and  He  will 
heal  us ;  He  hath  smitten  and  He  will  bind  us  up. 
After  two  days  will  He  revive  us,  in  the  third  day  He 
will  raise  us  up,  and  we  shall  live  before  Him"  (vi.  1  seq^. ; 
xiii.  14).  Even  Ephraim's  hard  heart  cannot  for  ever 
resist  Jehovah's  love.  "  He  will  allure  her  and  lead  her 
into  the  wilderness  "  of  exile  "  and  s'pcalz  to  lier  heart " 
(ii.  14).  The  desolate  valley  of  Achor  shall  be  to  her 
the  gate  of  hope,  and  there  "  she  shall  answer  as  in  the 
days  of  her  youth  and  the  day  when  she  came  up  out 


LECT.  IV.  ESCHATOLOGY,  189 

of  the  land  of  Egypt"  (ii.  15).  AVhen  His  people  are 
scattered  in  exile  Jeliovah  shall  roar  like  a  lion,  and 
the  wanderers  shall  come  fluttering  to  His  call  like  a 
bird  from  Egypt,  like  a  dove  from  the  land  of  Assyria 
(xi.  10, 11).  The  purpose  of  the  judgment  is  not  penal ; 
it  is  meant  to  teach  them  that  Jehovah  alone  is  the 
husband  of  Israel,  and  the  giver  of  those  good  things 
which  in  their  blindness  she  esteemed  the  gifts  of  the 
Baalim  (ii.  5  seq^.  Taught  by  adversity,  Ephraim  shall 
acknowledge  that  neither  the  alliance  of  strange  em- 
pires, nor  his  own  prowess,  nor  his  vain  idols  can  give 
deliverance  ;  "Asshur  shall  not  save  us,  we  will  not 
ride  upon  horses,  neither  will  we  say  any  more  to  the 
work  of  our  hands,  Ye  are  our  gods  ;  for  in  Thee  the 
fatherless  findeth  mercy."  And  so  at  length  all  Israel 
shall  be  saved ;  but  in  this  redemption  every  feature 
of  the  old  nation  has  disappeared — its  state,  its  religion, 
its  warlike  might,  its  foreign  policy,  king  and  prince, 
sacrifice  and  sanctuary,  images  (ephod)  and  teraphim. 
The  very  face  of  nature  is  changed  ;  the  wild  beasts  of 
the  field,  the  fowls  of  heaven,  the  creeping  things  of 
the  earth  are  at  peace  with  Jehovah's  people  ;  sword  and 
battle  are  broken  out  of  the  earth  that  they  may  lie 
down  safely  (ii.  18).  Jehovah  alone  remains  over- 
shadowing Israel  and  Israel's  land  with  His  infinite 
compassion  (xiv.  7).  And  then  the  voice  of  Ephraim 
is  heard,  "  What  have  I  to  do  any  more  with  idols  ?  I 
answer  and  look  to  Him  ;  I  am  as  a  green  fir-tree,  from 
me  is  Thy  fruit  found."  ^o 


100  HO  SEA.  LECT.  IV. 

It  is  no  mere  accident  that  Hosea  in  this  closing 
picture  returns  to  the  image  of  the  evergreen  tree  which 
played  so  large  a  part  in  that  nature-religion  which  it 
was  his  chief  work  to  contend  against.  In  translating 
religion  into  the  language  of  the  most  spiritual  human 
atfections,  Hosea  fixed  for  ever  the  true  image  of  reli- 
gious faith  ;  and  we  still  find  in  his  book  a  fit  expres- 
sion of  the  profoundest  feelings  of  repentant  devotion — 
a  delineation  of  Jehovah's  forgiving  love  which  touches 
the  inmost  chords  of  our  being.  But  to  Hosea  the 
worshipping  subject  the  object  of  God's  redeeming 
grace  is  the  nation  in  its  corporate  capacity,  not  a  true 
person  but  a  personified  society.  So  long  as  the  indi- 
vidual side  of  religion  fails  to  receive  that  central  place 
which  it  holds  in  the  Gospel  it  is  impossible  to  repre- 
sent the  liighest  spiritual  truth  without  some  use  of 
physical  analogies  ;  and  this  shows  itself  in  the  most 
characteristic  way  when  the  book  of  Hosea  closes  with 
an  image  derived  from  mere  vegetative  life.  The  true 
goal  of  Hosea's  ideas  lay  beyond  his  own  horizon,  in  a 
dispensation  when  the  relation  of  the  redeeming  God 
to  every  believing  soul  should  have  all  that  tenderness 
and  depth  of  personal  affection  with  which  he  clothes 
the  relation  of  Jehovah  to  Israel.^^ 


LECT.  V.  ISAIAH.  191 


LECTUEE   V. 

THE  KINGDOM   OF   JUDAH  AND   THE  BEGINNINGS   OF 
ISAIAH'S   WOKK.^ 

We  have  now  reached  the  point  in  the  Old  Testament 
history  at  which  the  centre  of  interest  is  transferred 
from  Ephraim  to  Judah.  Under  the  dynasties  of  Omri 
and  Jehu,  the  I^orthern  Kingdom  took  the  leading  part 
in  Israel ;  even  to  the  Judsean  Amos  it  was  Israel  'par 
excellence.  Judah  was  not  only  inferior  in  political 
power,  but  in  the  share  it  took  in  the  active  movements 
of  national  life  and  thought.  In  tracing  the  history  of 
religion  and  the  work  of  the  prophets,  we  have  been 
almost  exclusively  occupied  with  the  North ;  Amos 
himself,  when  charged  with  a  message  to  the  whole 
family  that  Jehovah  brought  up  out  of  Egypt,  leaves 
his  home  to  preach  in  a  Northern  sanctuary.  During 
this  whole  period  we  have  a  much  fuller  knowledge  of 
the  life  of  Ephraim  than  of  Judah ;  the  Judasan  history 
consists  of  meagre  extracts  from  official  records,  except 
where  it  conies  into  contact  with  the  North,  through 
the  alliance  of  Jehoshaphat  with  Ahab  ;  through  the  re- 
action of  Jehu's  revolution  in  the  fall  of  Athaliah.  the 


192  EPHRAIM  lect.  v. 

last  scion  of  the  house  of  Ahab,  and  the  accompanying 
abolition  of  Baal  worship  at  Jerusalem,  or,  finally, 
through  the  presumptuous  attempt  of  Amaziah  to  mea- 
sure his  strength  with  the  powerful  monarch  of  Samaria. 
While  the  house  of  Ephraim  was  engaged  in  the  great 
war  with  Syria,  Judah  had  seldom  to  deal  with  enemies 
more  formidable  than  the  Philistines  or  the  Edomites  ; 
and  the  contest  with  these  foes,  renewed  with  varying 
success  generation  after  generation,  resolved  itself  into 
a  succession  of  forays  and  blood-feuds  such  as  have 
always  been  common  in  the  lands  of  the  Semites  (Ames 
i.),  and  never  assumed  the  character  of  a  struggle  for 
national  existence.  It  w^as  the  Northern  Kingdom  that 
had  the  task  of  upholding  the  standard  of  Israel  :  its 
whole  history  presents  greater  interest  and  more  heroic 
elements  ;  its  struggles,  its  calamities,  and  its  glories 
were  cast  in  a  larger  mould.  It  is  a  trite  proverb  that 
the  nation  which  has  no  history  is  happy,  and  perhaps 
the  course  of  Judah's  existence  ran  more  smoothly  than 
that  of  its  greater  neighbour,  in  spite  of  the  raids  of  the 
slave-dealers  of  the  coast,  and  the  lawless  hordes  of  the 
desert.  But  no  side  of  national  existence  is  likely  to 
find  full  development  where  there  is  little  political 
activity ;  if  the  life  of  the  North  was  more  troubled, 
it  was  also  larger  and  more  intense.  Ephraim  took  the 
lead  in  literature  and  religion  as  well  as  in  politics  ;  it 
was  in  Ephraim  far  more  than  in  Judah  that  the  tradi- 
tions of  past  history  were  cherished,  and  new  problems 
of  religion  became  practical  and  called  for  solution  by 


LECT.  V.  AND  JUDAH.  193 

the  word  of  the  prophets.  So  long  as  the  Northern 
Kingdom  endured  Judali  was  content  to  learn  from  it 
for  evil  or  for  good.  It  would  be  easy  to  show  in  detail 
that  every  great  wave  of  life  and  thought  in  Ephraim 
was  transmitted  with  diminished  intensity  to  the 
Southern  Kingdom. 

In  many  respects  the  influence  of  Ephraim  upon 
Judah  was  similar  to  that  of  England  upon  Scotland 
before  the  union  of  the  crowns,  but  with  the  important 
difference  that  after  the  accession  of  Omri  the  two 
Hebrew  kinofdoms  were  seldom  involved  in  hostilities. 

o 

At  the  first  division  of  North  and  South,  upon  the  death 
of  Solomon,  the  house  of  David  was  disposed  to  treat 
the  seceding  tribes  as  rebels,  and  the  accumulated  wealth 
and  organised  resources  of  the  capital  enabled  Eeho- 
boam  for  a  time  to  press  hard  upon  his  rival.^  The  in- 
vasion of  Shishak,  in  which  Eehoboam  was  impoverished 
and  severely  chastised,  restored  the  natural  balance  of 
things,  and  soon  after  we  find  Asa,  king  of  Judah, 
reduced  to  the  necessity  of  calling  on  the  Syrians  to 
help  him  against  Baasha  ;  but  the  house  of  Omri  culti- 
vated friendly  relations  with  the  Davidic  kings.  Jeho- 
shaphat  was  the  ally  of  Ahab  and  his  sons,  and  an  ally 
on  inferior  terms,  bringing  a  contingent  to  their  aid  in 
the  Syrian  and  Moabite  wars.  From  this  time  forward 
the  North  and  the  South  seem  to  have  felt  that  they 
had  common  interests  and  dangers  ;  indeed,  when  the 
power  of  Damascus  was  at  its  height  Judah  as  well  as 
Ephraim  suffered  from  the  inroads  of  Hazael  (2  Kings 


194  HISTORY 


xii.  17  se^'.).  The  wanton  attempt  of  Amaziah  to  pro- 
voke a  conflict  with  King  Joash,  about  the  close  of  the 
Syrian  period,  ended  in  humiliation  ;  but  Joash  made 
no  attempt  to  incorporate  Judah  in  his  dominions,  and 
the  popular  rising  which  cost  Amaziah  his  life  prob- 
ably expressed  the  dissatisfaction  of  his  subjects  with 
his  presumptuous  policy.  Amaziah  was  succeeded  by 
Uzziah,  whose  long  and  prosperous  reign  appears  to 
have  corresponded  pretty  exactly  with  that  of  Jeroboam 
II.  The  current  chronology,  which  obscures  this  cor- 
respondence, is  certainly  corrupt,  and  we  shall  not  be 
far  wrorn^  if  we  view  Uzziah  and  Jotham  as  the  con- 
temporaries  of  Jeroboam  II.  and  Menahem,  while  Ahaz 
of  Judah  came  to  the  throne  soon  after  Menahem's 
death,  and  saw  the  greater  part  of  the  wars  which  began 
with  the  invasion  of  Tiglath  Pileser  and  closed  with  the 
fall  of  Samaria.^  The  date  of  Hezekiah's  accession  is 
much  disputed  by  chronologers  ;  but  he  appears  to  have 
taken  the  sceptre  before  the  fall  of  Samaria,  while  the 
greater  part  of  his  reign  certainly  falls  after  that  event. 
Thus,  speaking  broadly,  we  may  say  that  in  the  time  of 
Hosea  and  Amos,  under  Kings  Uzziah  and  Jotham,  Judah 
was  at  peace  with  Israel,  and  still  free  from  implication 
in  the  stream  of  larger  politics.  Ahaz,  on  the  contrary, 
was  attacked  by  Pekah  and  Eezin,  and  to  escape  this 
danger  accepted  the  position  of  an  Assyrian  vassal ;  but 
his  land  was  not  yet  brought  into  direct  contact  with 
Assyria.  Under  Hezekiah  the  Assyrian  armies  were 
close  to  Judah,  conducting  operations,  not  only  against 


LECT.  V.  OF  JUDAH.  195 

Samaria,  but  against  other  neighbouring  states,  so  as  to 
become  a  source  of  imminent  danger  to  Judali  itself, 
which  could  only  hope  for  safety  by  patiently  fulfilling 
the  duties  of  a  vassal  state,  and  rejecting  every  tempta- 
tion to  chafe  under  the  Assyrian  yoke  ;  but  meantime 
it  had  become  plain  that  Egypt  was  the  ultimate  goal 
of  the  Assyrian  operations  in  Palestine.  Egyptian 
diplomacy  was  busy  in  the  Palestinian  states,  with 
tempting  promises  to  encourage  revolt  against  the  em- 
pire of  the  Tigris.  Judali  had  to  choose  between  abso- 
lute political  quietude,  accepting  the  present  situation 
as  it  stood  and  leavincj  the  srreat  struc^de  to  be  foucjht 
out  by  others,  and  the  task  of  entering  for  the  first  time 
into  the  movements  of  an  imperial  policy,  in  which  the 
principal  actors  were  great  empires  altogether  different 
from  the  petty  states  with  which  it  had  formerly  had 
to  do.  The  alternative  was  pregnant  with  important 
issues,  not  only  for  the  political  existence  of  the  little 
nation,  but  for  the  relicrion  of  Jehovah,  and  to  indicate 
the  religious  solution  of  the  problems  of  this  crisis  was 
the  work  of  the  greatest  of  Judtean  prophets,  Isaiah  the 
son  of  Amos.  The  famous  expedition  of  Sennacherib, 
which  marks  the  culminating  point  of  his  prophetic  life, 
fell  in  the  year  701  B.C.,  twenty  years  after  the  capture 
of  Samaria  and  thirty -three  after  the  expedition  of 
Tiglath  Pileser  against  Pekah  and  Rezin,  which  gave 
occasion  to  the  first  important  series  of  Isaiah's  pro- 
phecies. To  the  student  of  prophecy  these  years  are  the 
most  important  in  the  Old  Testament  history,  and  as 


196  THE  KINGDOM  lect.  v. 

such  they  claim  from  us  a  very  careful  study ;  but  to 
understand  them  aright  it  will  be  necessary  to  go  back 
to  the  epoch  of  prosperity  running  parallel  to  the  reign 
of  Jeroboam  II.,  and  consider  the  political  and  religious 
position  of  Judah  in  the  reign  of  Uzziah.  Amos,  it  will 
be  remembered,  flourished  under  this  kingr,  and  the  call 
of  Isaiah,  described  in  chapter  vi.  of  his  book,  took  place 
in  the  year  of  Uzziah's  death.  Our  business,  therefore,  is 
to  examine  the  state  of  things  in  the  Southern  Kingdom 
at  the  time  when  Amos  and  Hosea  were  prophesying 
in  the  !N"orth,  and  at  the  commencement  of  Isaiah's 
ministry. 

From  the  overthrow  of  Athaliah  to  the  accession 
of  Ahaz  and  the  acceptance  by  him  of  the  position  of 
an  Assyrian  vassal  is  something  more  than  a  century. 
It  was,  on  the  whole,  a  century  of  material  progress,  of 
political  stability,  and  of  successful  war.  Two  kings 
indeed,  Joasli  and  Amaziah,  met  a  violent  death ;  but, 
while  in  the  North  the  assassination  of  a  monarch  was 
always  followed  by  a  change  of  dynasty,  the  people  of 
Judah  remained  constantly  attached  to  the  house  of 
David,  and  the  order  of  succession  w^as  never  broken. 
The  judgments  passed  upon  the  character  of  Judaean 
sovereigns  in  the  book  of  Kings  have  almost  exclusive 
reference  to  their  actions  in  regard  to  the  affairs  of 
public  worship  ;  but  the  stability  of  the  dj^nasty  is  the 
best  proof  that  the  generally  favourable  estimate  of 
their  conduct  was  borne  out  by  the  opinion  of  their 
contemporaries.     Their  religious  policy,  indeed,  may  be 


LECT.  V.  OF  JUDAH,  197 

fairly  assumed  to  be  typical  of  the  general  principles  of 
tlieir  rule.  These  princi^^les  were  conservative  ;  the 
son  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  his  father  (2  Kings  xv. 
3 ;  xvi.  3);  and  so,  if  no  high  ideal  was  aimed  at,  there 
were  at  least  no  new  and  crying  abuses  to  excite  dis- 
content. The  conservative  character  of  the  Judsean 
state  is  readily  explained  from  the  history  of  the  house 
of  David.  The  earliest  political  unity  in  Israel  was  not 
the  nation,  but  the  tribe  or  its  subdivision  the  clan. 
The  heads  of  clans  and  communities  were  the  hereditary 
aristocracy,  the  natural  leaders  in  peace  and  in  war  ; 
and  we  have  already  seen  that  this  form  of  organisation 
is  that  which  history  proves  to  be  most  conducive  to 
stability  and  good  order  among  Semitic  peoples  {mpra, 
p.  93  sec[.).  The  natural  aim  of  a  strong  monarchy,  ruling 
over  a  confederation  of  tribes,  is  to  break  down  the  tribal 
system,  and  bring  all  parts  of  the  kingdom  more  directly 
under  the  control  of  the  capital  ;  while  the  natural 
conservatism  of  the  individual  provinces  opposes  this 
process,  and  seeks  to  limit  the  power  of  the  king  to  the 
supreme  command  in  war,  and  the  office  of  deciding 
appeals  laid  before  him  in  peace.  In  the  Northern 
Kingdom,  as  we  have  further  seen,  the  overthrow  of 
the  old  tribal  system  was  already  part  of  Solomon's 
policy,  and  the  more  powerful  of  the  kings  of  Ephraim 
appear,  in  like  manner,  to  have  laboured  in  the  direction 
of  centralisation  and  political  absolutism.  Prolonged 
and  exhausting  wars  naturally  favoured  this  policy,  but 
at  the  ruinous  cost  of  breaking  up  old  social  bonds  and 


198  JUDAH  UNDER  lect.  v. 

opening  a  fatal  gulf  between  the  aristocracy  of  the  court 
and  the  mass  of  the  people.  In  Judah  the  course  of 
events  was  different.  In  his  own  tribe  Solomon  ap- 
pointed no  such  provincial  governors  or  tax-gatherers 
as  excited  the  discontent  of  J^orthern  Israel  with  his 
rule, —  moved  perhaps  by  the  example  of  his  father 
David,  w^io,  after  the  revolt  of  Absalom,  in  which  Judah 
was  the  first  to  rise  and  the  last  to  return  to  obedience, 
appears  to  have  deemed  it  necessary  to  treat  his  own 
tribe  with  special  favour,  and  recognise  its  willing  sup- 
port as  the  chief  prop  of  his  throne.  The  Judseans 
remained  loyal  to  Eehoboam,  because  their  prejudices 
and  ancestral  usages  had  not  been  violated  like  those 
of  tlie  North ;  and  when  the  kingdom  was  practically 
narrowed  to  a  single  tribe,  and  could  no  longer  pretend 
to  play  the  part  of  a  great  power,  neither  policy  nor 
interest  urged  the  Davidic  kings  to  startling  innovations 
in  government.  Thus  the  internal  condition  of  the  state 
was  stable,  though  little  progressive ;  the  kings  were 
fairly  successful  in  war,  though  not  sufficiently  strong 
to  maintain  unbroken  authority  over  Edom,  the  only 
vassal  state  of  the  old  Davidic  realm  over  which  they 
still  claimed  suzerainty,  and  their  civil  administration 
must  have  been  generally  satisfactory  according  to  the 
not  very  high  standard  of  the  East ;  for  they  retained 
the  affections  of  their  people,  the  justice  and  mercy  of 
the  throne  of  David  are  favourably  spoken  of  in  the  old 
prophecy  against  ]\ioab  quoted  in  Isaiah  xv.  xvi.,  and 
Isaiah  contrasts  the  disorders  of  his  own  time  with  the 


KING  UZZIAH.  199 


ancient  reputation  of  Jerusalem  for  fidelity  and  justice 
(i.  21).  This  reputation  hardly  proves  that  any  very 
ideal  standard  of  government  was  reached  or  aimed  at, 
but  we  may  conclude  that  ancient  law  and  usage  were 
fairly  maintained,  and  that  administrative  or  judicial 
innovations,  which  irritate  an  Eastern  people  much  more 
than  individual  miscarriages  of  justice,  were  seldom 
attempted.  The  religious  conduct  of  the  house  of 
David  followed  the  same  general  lines.  Old  abuses 
remained  untouched,  but  the  cultus  remained  much  as 
David  and  Solomon  had  left  it.  Local  liigli  places  were 
numerous,  and  no  attempt  was  made  to  interfere  with 
them  ;  but  the  great  temple  on  Mount  Zioii,  which 
formed  part  of  the  complex  of  royal  buildings  erected 
by  Solomon,  maintained  its  prestige,  and  appears  to 
have  been  a  special  object  of  solicitude  to  the  kings, 
who  treated  its  service  as  part  of  their  royal  state. 

It  is  common  to  imaoine  that  the  religious  condition 

o  o 

of  Judah  was  very  much  superior  to  that  of  the  North, 
but  there  is  absolutely  no  evidence  to  support  this 
opinion.  Throughout  the  Old  Testament  history  the 
abuses  of  popular  worship  are  brought  into  prominence 
mainly  in  connection  with  efforts  after  reform.  In 
Judah  there  was  no  movement  of  reform  to  record  be- 
tween the  time  of  Joash,  when  the  Tyrian  Baal  was 
abolished,  and  the  time  of  Hezekiah,  who  acted  under 
the  influence  of  Isaiah.  Thus,  in  the  narrative  of  Kinos, 
the  history  of  religion  remains  an  absolute  blank  during 
tlie  century  with  which  we  are  particularly  concerned, 


200  RELIGIOUS  CONDITION  lect.  v. 

and  it  is  only  just  before  Hezekiah  arose  that  the  his- 
torian finds  it  necessary  to  call  unfavourable  attention 
to  the  fact  that  Ahaz  sacrificed  on  the  high  places,  on 
the  hills,  and  under  every  green  tree.  His  predecessors 
had  undoubtedly  done  the  same,  for  they  accepted  the 
high  places  as  legitimate  ;  the  guilt  of  Ahaz  is  not 
measured  by  his  deflection  from  the  standard  of  his 
ancestors,  but  by  his  refusal  to  rise  to  the  higher  stand- 
ard which  prophets  like  Isaiah  began  to  set  forth. 
There  can  be  no  question  that  the  worship  of  the 
Judsean  sanctuaries  was  as  little  spiritual  as  that  of 
the  Northern  shrines.  Isaiah  has  as  much  to  say  against 
idols  as  Hosea.  "  Their  land,"  he  says,  *'  is  full  of  idols; 
they  worship  the  work  of  their  own  hands"  (ii.  8). 
And  these  idols  were  not  new  things  ;  the  brazen  ser- 
pent, destroyed  by  Hezekiah,  was  worshipped  as  the 
work  of  Moses,  which  certainly  implies  a  cultus  of 
immemorial  antiquity.  In  detail,  no  doubt,  there  was 
considerable  difference  between  the  idolatry  of  the 
North  and  the  South.  We  read  of  a  brazen  serpent, 
but  not  of  golden  calves  as  symbols  of  Jehovah ;  nor 
does  the  name  of  Baalim,  by  which  the  latter  were 
known  in  Ephraim,  appear  in  Isaiah  or  Micah.  The 
association  of  the  Godhead  with  symbols  of  natural 
growth  and  reproductive  power,  which  proved  so  fatal 
to  religion  and  morality  in  the  North,  was  not  lacking : 
in  Judah  as  in  Israel  the  people  worshipped  under  ever- 
green trees — the  Canaanite  symbol  of  the  female  side 
of  the  divine  power ;  and  the  ashcra,  which  has  the 


OF  JUDAH.  201 


same  meaning,  was  found  in  Judsean  as  in  Northern 
sanctuaries  (Isa.  i.  29  ;  xvii.  8  ;  Micali  v.  14,  where 
for  groves  read  asJieras).  Other  Canaanite  elements  were 
not  wanting ;  the  worship  of  Adonis  or  Tammuz,  for 
which  we  have  direct  e\ddence  in  the  Last  days  of  Jerusa- 
lem (Ezek.  viii.  14),  appears  to  be  already  alluded  to  by 
Isaiah.  But  on  the  whole  it  is  probable  that  the  popu- 
lar religion  was  not  so  largely  leavened  with  Canaanite 
ideas  and  Canaanite  immorality  as  in  the  North  ;  there 
is  nothing  in  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah  and  Micah  corre- 
sponding to  the  picture  of  vile  licentiousness  under  the 
cloak  of  religion  drawn  by  Amos  and  Hosea.  This, 
indeed,  is  what  we  should  expect ;  for  in  the  popula- 
tion of  Judsea  the  fusion  of  Canaanite  and  Hebrew 
elements  was  not  so  great  as  in  Ephraim  and  Manasseh ; 
in  Southern  Judah  the  chief  non-Hebrew  element  was 
of  Arab  stock ;  and  the  great  sanctuaries  of  the  South 
do  not  appear  to  have  been  to  the  same  extent  as  in  the 
North  identical  with  Canaanite  holy  places.  Judah,  more- 
over, was  a  much  poorer  country  than  Ephraim  ;  there 
was  less  natural  wealth,  and  apparently  the  whole  con- 
ditions of  life  were  simpler  and  more  primitive  ;  so  that 
we  should  naturally  expect  to  find  less  sympathy  with  the 
luxurious  Canaanite  worship,  but  at  the  same  time  more 
relics  of  the  ancient  superstitions  of  the  Hebrews  before 
Moses.  These,  again,  can  hardly  have  been  without 
affinity  to  the  original  beliefs  of  the  incorporated  Arab 
elements,  and  a  variety  of  circumstances  make  it  prob- 
able that  a  species  of  fetichism  or  totemism  was  largely 

10 


202  RELIGIOUS  CONDITION  i^lcy.  v. 


current  in  Judali  as  in  the  neiglibouring  desert.  Such 
ancestral  superstitions  are  probably  alluded  to  in  Amos 
ii.  4,  and  their  nature  is  illustrated  in  the  worship  of 
famOy  gods,  in  the  form  of  unclean  animals,  described  in 
Ezek.  viii.  10  scq.  One  of  the  most  characteristic  proofs 
of  the  prevalence  of  the  lowest  superstitions  is  the 
frequent  reference  made  by  the  Judoean  prophets  to 
various  forms  of  magic  and  divination,  such  as  the  con- 
sultation of  familiar  spirits  through  "  wizards  that  peep 
and  mutter" — a  kind  of  ventriloquists  (Isa.  viii.  19, 
comp.  xxix.  4).^  The  practice  of  divination  was  not  con- 
fined to  the  masses.  Isaiah  reckons  "  the  cunning 
magician  and  the  man  skilled  in  enchantments  "  along- 
side of  the  captains  and  counsellors  as  recognised  props  of 
the  state  (iii.  3) ;  while  Micah  characterises  the  ordinary 
prophets  as  diviners  (iii.  7,  11,  comp.  v.  12).  Isaiah 
represents  these  superstitious  practices  as  of  foreign,  in 
part  of  Philistine,  character  (ii.  6)  ;  and,  when  we  take 
along  with  this  the  undisturbed  existence  of  the  sanc- 
tuaries built  by  Solomon  for  his  foreign  wives,  we  must 
conclude  that  the  opposition  to  distinctively  foreign 
elements  which  characterises  the  worshi]3  of  Ephraim 
from  the  time  of  Elijah  was  not  so  strongly  marked  in 
the  religious  practices  of  Judah.  Under  the  dynasty  of 
Jehu  Jehovah  had  nominally  undivided  allegiance  from 
the  house  of  Ephraim  ;  foreign  elements  were  eschewed, 
and  the  superstitions  incorporated  with  the  ritual  of 
the  sanctuaries,  which  led  Ilosea  to  declare  that  the 
popular    religion   was    not   Jehovah   worship    at    all, 


LECT.  V.  OF  JUDAH.  203 

were  those  indigenous  to  the  land  of  Canaan.  In  Judah 
the  influence  of  the  work  of  Elijah  had  been  only 
indirectly  felt;  the  nation  had  passed  through  no 
such  oreat  crisis  as  the  lon^j  battle  of  the  Northern 
prophets  with  the  house  of  Ahab  ;  and  thus  the  preva- 
lent superstitions  were  partly  of  a  different  character 
from  those  we  meet  with  in  Ephraim,  and  partly  indi- 
cated a  less  hopeless  condition  of  religious  life,  because 
a  higher  ideal  of  Jehovah  worship  had  never  been  so 
distinctly  set  before  the  mass  of  the  people.  All  this, 
of  course,  must  be  understood  as  not  excluding  a  great 
influence  of  the  North  on  tlie  minor  kingdom.  On  the 
one  hand  it  is  clear  that  Amos  had  thoroughly  assimi- 
lated the  teaching  of  Elijah,  while  Isaiah  and  Micah 
appropriate  the  teaching  of  Hosea  on  the  subject  of 
idolatry.  In  truth,  everything  that  we  possess  of  the 
sacred  literature  and  history  of  the  North  has  been 
conveyed  to  us  through  Judiean  channels.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  growing  corruption  of  Ephraim  in 
religion  and  social  order  was  full  of  peril  to  Judah. 
Hosea  warns  the  Judteans  against  participation  in  the 
guilt  of  Israel  (iv.  15),  and  Micah  tells  us  that  the 
transgressions  of  Israel  were  found  in  his  own  land 
(i.  13,  comp.  vi.  16). 

The  material  prosperity  of  Ephraim  in  the  last  gen- 
eration of  the  house  of  Jehu  had  its  counterpart,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  in  the  condition  of  Judah  under 
Uzziah.  Edom  was  again  reduced  to  subjection,  and 
thus  the  harbour  of  Elath  on  the  Eed  Sea  came  into 


204  PROSPERITY  OF  lect.  v. 

the  possession  of  the  house  of  David,  which  at  the 
same  time  obtained  the  control  of  the  important  cara- 
van route  from  Sela  to  Southern  Arabia  (2  Kings  xiv. 
7,  22).  These  successes  gave  Judah  an  important  com- 
mercial position,  and  led  to  the  formation  of  a  fleet 
(Isa.  ii.  16)  and  a  great  development  of  wealth  (Isa.  ii. 
V).  The  resources  of  the  monarchy  were  enlarged,  and 
its  warlike  strength  was  increased  by  the  multiplication 
of  chariots  and  horses  (Isa.  ii.  7  ;  Micah  i.  13 ;  v.  10  ; 
comp.  Hosea  i.  7;  viii.  14).  But  to  a  nation  situated  like 
the  Hebrews  the  sudden  expansion  of  commerce  brought 
grave  social  dangers.  Society  was  constructed  on  the 
basis  of  a  purely  agricultural  life,  the  merchants  of 
early  times  were  not  Hebrews,  but  Canaanites,  who  had 
a  trading  quarter  of  their  own  at  Jerusalem  (Zeph.  i.  11, 
where  for  merchant  read  Canaaiiitc).  The  newly-de- 
veloped trade  could  not  but  fall  largely  into  the  hands 
of  the  grandees  and  courtiers,  and  the  wealth  they  accu- 
mulated changed  their  relations  to  the  commonalty,  and 
gave  them  opportunity  for  the  exactions  and  injustice 
from  which,  in  Eastern  society,  the  wealthy  seldom 
keep  themselves  pure.  Hosea  complains  that  in  Eph- 
raim  commerce,  deceit,  and  oppression  went  hand  in 
hand  (xii.  7),  and  in  Judah  the  case  was  not  otherwise. 
The  centralisation  of  large  capital  in  a  few  hands  led 
to  the  formation  of  huge  estates,  the  poorer  landowners 
being  either  bought  out  when  they  fell  into  the  power 
of  their  creditors,  or  ejected  by  violence  and  false  judg- 
ment (Isa.  V.  8  ;  Micah  ii.  2,  9).     Judicial  corruption 


LECT.  V.  UZZIAH'S  REIGN.  205 

increased  ;  every  man  had  his  price  (Micah  iii.  1 1),  and 
the  poor  in  such  a  state  of  things  could  do  nothing 
against  the  tyrants  who,  in  the  forcible  phrase  of  Micah, 
"  stripped  the  skin  from  off  them,  and  their  flesh  from 
off  their  bones  "  (iii.  2).  These  evils,  no  doubt,  assumed 
an  intenser  form  after  the  calamitous  war  with  Pekah 
and  Eezin  had  spread  desolation  in  the  land,  and  when 
the  burden  of  taxation,  which  in  the  East  always  falls 
heaviest  on  the  poor,  was  increased  by  the  tribute  to 
Assyria ;  and  it  is  to  this  later  time  that  the  most 
melancholy  prophetic  pictures  of  the  state  of  Judah 
apply.  ■  But  the  fatal  degeneracy  of  the  higher  classes, 
unequal  distribution  of  Avealth,  oppression  of  the  poor, 
corrupt  luxury,  and  the  like  are  dwelt  on  in  the  earliest 
utterances  of  Isaiah  (chaps,  ii.-v.),  at  a  time  when  the 
external  prosperity  of  the  nation  was  still  uninterrupted. 
Isaiah  began  his  work  in  the  year  of  Uzziah's  death, 
and  when  he  accepted  the  task  of  a  prophet  he  already 
pictures  his  nation  as  so  corrupt  that  it  could  be  puri- 
fied only  by  a  consuming  judgment. 

The  year  of  Uzziah's  death  cannot  be  determined 
with  precision.  The  present  chronology  gives  to  his  son 
Jotham  a  reign  of  sixteen  years,  which  in  all  probability 
is  a  good  deal  too  much.  But  at  all  events  Isaiah 
began  to  prophesy  some  years  before  734  B.C.,  and 
his  influence  was  at  its  height  during  the  expedition  of 
Sennacherib  in  701,  so  that  his  career  covers  a  period 
of  some  forty  years  at  the  least.  More  happy  in  his 
work  than  Amos  and  Hosea,  he  succeeded  during  this 


206  CAREER  AND  legt.  v. 

long  period  in  acquiring  a  commanding  position  in  the 
state.  In  tlie  time  of  Hezekiah,  plans  which  it  was 
known  he  would  condemn  were  carefully  concealed  from 
him  by  the  politicians  he  opposed  (Isa.  xxix.  15) ;  and 
in  the  day  of  Jerusalem's  sorest  trouble  the  king  and 
his  people  sought  from  him  the  help  which  only  the 
word  of  Jehovah  could  supply.  Though  we  are  not 
expressly  told  so  in  the  narrative  of  Kings,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  it  was  he  who  inspired  Hezekiah's  plans 
of  reformation  in  the  national  worship,  and  at  his  death 
he  left  behind  him  a  prophetic  j)arty  so  strong  that 
the  counter-reformation  of  Manasseh  was  only  carried  out 
by  the  aid  of  bloody  persecution.  And,  though  his 
work  thus  seemed  for  a  time  to  be  undone,  its  influence 
was  not  extingjuished.  It  is  the  teaching^  of  Isaiah  that 
forms  the  starting-point  of  the  book  of  Deuteronomy, 
and  of  the  reformation  of  Josiah,  of  which  that  book  was 
the  programme  ;  and  thus  the  ideas  of  the  great  prophet 
continued  to  exercise  a  decisive  influence  on  the 
affairs  of  Judah  more  than  a  century  after  they  were 
first  proclaimed.  In  truth,  the  whole  subsequent  history 
of  the  Hebrew  people  bears  the  impress  of  Isaiah's 
activity.  It  was  through  him  that  the  word  of  prophecy, 
despised  and  rejected  when  it  was  spoken  by  Amos 
and  Hosea,  became  a  practical  power  not  only  in  the 
state  but  in  the  whole  life  of  the  nation.  We  can 
readily  understand  that  so  great  a  work  could  not  have 
been  effected  by  an  isolated  mission  like  that  of  Amos, 
or  by  a  man  like  llosea,  who  stood  apart  from  all  the 


LECT.  V.  INFLUENCE  OF  ISAIAH.  207 

leaders  of  his  nation,  and  had  neither  friend  nor  disciple 
to  espouse  his  cause.  Isaiah  won  his  commanding  posi- 
tion, not  by  a  single  stroke,  but  by  long-sustained  and 
patient  effort.  His  work  must  have  commenced  when 
he  was  still  a  young  man,  and  it  was  continued  into 
old  age  with  the  same  unfailing  courage  which  marks 
his  first  appearance  as  a  prophet.  The  work  of  a  pro- 
phet was  the  vocation  of  his  life,  to  which  every  energy 
was  devoted  ;  even  his  Avife  is  called  the  prophetess 
(viii.  3) ;  his  sons  bore  prophetic  names,  not  enigmatic 
like  those  given  by  Hosea  to  Gomer's  children,  but 
expressing  in  plain  language  two  fundamental  themes 
of  his  doctrine — the  speedy  approach  of  judgment  by 
hostile  invasion  (Maher-shalal-hash-baz,  viii.  3),  and  the 
hope  of  return  to  Jehovah  and  His  grace  by  the  remnant 
of  the  nation  (Shear-jashub,  vii.  3  ;  the  name  is  trans- 
lated in  X.  21).  The  truths  which  he  proclaimed  he 
sought  to  make  immediately  practical  in  the  circle  of 
disciples  whom  he  gathered  round  him  (viii.  16),  and 
through  them  to  prepare  the  way  for  national  reformation. 
And  in  this  work  he  was  aided  by  personal  relations 
within  the  highest  circles  of  the  capital.  Uriah,  the 
chief  priest  of  the  temple,  was  his  friend,  and  appears 
associated  with  him  as  witness  to  a  solemn  act  by  which 
he  attested  a  weighty  prophecy  at  a  time  when  king  and 
people  had  not  yet  learned  to  give  credence  to  his  words 
(viii.  2).  His  own  life  seems  to  have  been  constantly 
spent  in  the  capital ;  but  he  was  not  without  support  in 
the  provinces.     The  countryman  Micah,  who  prophesied 


208  ISAIAH  AND  lect.  v. 

in  the  low  country  on  the  Philistine  border  near  the  begin- 
ning of  Hezekiah's  reign,  was  nnqnestionably  influenced 
by  his  great  contemporary,  and,  though  his  conceptions 
are  shaped  with  the  individual  freedom  characteristic 
of  the  true  prophet,  and  by  no  means  fit  mechanically 
into  the  details  of  Isaiah's  picture  of  Jehovah's  approach- 
ing dealings,  the  essence  of  his  teaching  went  all  to 
further  Isaiah's  aims.  Thus  Isaiah  ultimately  became 
the  acknowledged  head  of  a  great  religious  movement. 
It  is  too  little  to  say  that  in  his  later  years  he  was  the 
first  man  in  Judah,  practically  guiding  the  helm  of  the 
state,  and  encouraging  Jerusalem  to  hold  out  against  the 
Assyrian  when  all  besides  had  lost  courage.  Even  to 
the  political  historian  Isaiah  is  the  most  notable  figure 
after  David  in  the  whole  history  of  Israel.  He  was  the 
man  of  a  supreme  crisis,  and  he  proved  himself  worthy 
by  guiding  his  nation  through  the  crisis  with  no  other 
strength  than  the  prophetic  word.  His  commanding 
influence  on  the  history  of  his  nation  naturally  suggests 
comparison  with  Elisha,  the  author  of  the  revolution 
of  Jehu,  and  the  soul  of  the  great  struggle  with  Syria. 
The  comparison  illustrates  the  extraordinary  change 
which  little  more  than  a  century  had  wrought  in  the 
character  and  aims  of  prophecy.  Elisha  effected  his 
first  object — the  downfall  of  the  house  of  Ahab — by 
entering  into  the  sphere  of  ordinary  political  intrigue  ; 
Isaiah  stood  aloof  from  all  political  combinations,  and 
his  influence  was  simply  that  of  his  commanding  cha- 
racter, and  of  the  imperial  word  of  Jehovah  preached 


ELISHA. 


in  season  and  out  of  season  with  unwavering  constancy. 
Elisha  in  his  later  years  was  the  inspiring  spirit  of  a 
heroic  conflict,  encouraging  his  people  to  fight  for  free- 
dom, and  resist  the  invader  by  armed  force.  Isaiah 
wtII  knew  that  Judah  had  no  martial  strength  that 
could  avail  for  a  moment  against  the  power  of  Assyria. 
He  did  not  aim  at  national  independence  ;  and,  rising 
above  the  dreams  of  vulgar  patriotism,  he  was  content  to 
accept  the  inevitable,  and  mark  out  for  Judah  a  course 
of  patient  submission  to  the  foreign  yoke,  in  order  that 
the  nation  might  concentrate  itself  on  the  task  of  inter- 
nal reformation  till  Jehovah  Himself  should  remove  the 
scourge  appointed  for  His  people's  sin.  In  this  concep- 
tion he  seized  and  united  in  one  practical  aim  ideas 
which  had  ajDpeared  separately  in  the  teaching  of  his 
predecessors,  Amos  and  Hosea.  Amos  had  taught  the 
salvation  of  a  righteous  remnant  in  a  nation  purified  by 
judgment,  Hosea  had  pointed  out  that  warlike  effort  and 
political  combinations  could  not  help  Israel,  which 
must  seek  its  deliverance  in  repentance  and  reliance 
on  Jehovah's  sovereignty.  With  Isaiah  the  doctrine  ofl 
the  remnant  becomes  a  practical  principle  ;  the  true 
Israel  within  Israel,  the  holy  seed  in  the  fallen  stock  of 
the  nation,  is  the  object  of  all  his  solicitude.  Living  in 
the  very  midst  of  the  winnowing  judgment  which  Amos 
had  seen  approaching  from  afar,  he  sought  to  give  the 
vital  elements  of  the  nation  a  centre  round  which  tliey 
could  rally,  and  a  task  of  internal  reformation  conformed 
to  the  duty  of  national  repentance.     This  alone  was 


210  THE  WRITINGS  lect.  v. 

Israel's  wisdom ;  Jehovah's  power  and  Jehovah's  spirit 
must  accomplish  the  rest  without  help  from  the  arm  of 
flesh.  In  the  supreme  crisis  of  the  Assyrian  wars 
Isaiah  w^as  not  less  truly  the  bulwark  of  his  nation  than 
Elisha  had  been  during  the  Syrian  wars.  But  his  hero- 
ism was  that  of  patience  and  faith,  and  the  deliverance 
came  as  he  had  foretold,  not  by  political  wisdom  or 
warlike  prowess,  but  by  the  direct  intervention  of 
Jehovah. 

When  we  endeavour  to  trace  the  history  of  Isaiah's 
prophetic  activity  by  the  aid  of  his  own  WTitings,  we 
are  met  by  the  difficulty  that  his  book  is  not 
arranged  in  strict  chronological  order.  Tlius  the  in- 
auG^ural  vision  in  which  he  received  his  consecration  as 
Jehovah's  messenger  to  Judah  is  not  the  first  but  the 
sixth  chapter  of  the  book ;  or  again  chap,  xx.,  which  is 
dated  from  the  year  of  the  capture  of  Ashdod  by  the 
general  of  Sargon,  i.e.  B.C.  711,  would  in  chronological 
order  stand  after  chap,  xxviii.,  which  speaks  of  the  king- 
dom of  Ephraim  as  still  in  existence.  It  is  plain,  then, 
that  the  book  as  it  stands  is  in  a  somewhat  disordered 
state.  Presumably  Isaiah  himself  issued  no  collected 
edition  of  all  his  prophecies,  but  only  put  forth  from 
time  to  time  individual  oracles  or  minor  collections, 
which  were  gathered  together  at  a  later  date,  and  on 
no  plan  which  we  can  follow.  Some  of  the  prophecies 
bear  a  date,  or  even  have  brief  notes  of  historical  ex- 
planation ;  others  begin  without  any  such  preface,  and 
their  date  and  occasion  can  only  be  inferred  from  the 


LECT.  V.  OF  ISAIAH.  211 

allusions  they  contain.  We  cannot  even  tell  wlien  or 
by  whom  the  collection  was  made.  The  collection  of 
all  remains  of  ancient  prophecy,  digested  into  the  four 
books  named  from  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  and  the 
Twelve  Minor  Prophets,  was  not  formed  till  after  the 
time  of  Ezra,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  at  least  after 
the  death  of  Isaiah.  In  one  of  these  four  books  every 
known  fragment  of  ancient  prophecy  had  to  take  its 
place,  and  no  one  who  knows  anything  of  the  collection  I 
and  transmission  of  ancient  books  wiU  think  it  reason- 
able to  expect  that  the  writings  of  each  separate 
prophet  were  carefully  gathered  out  and  arranged  to- 
gether in  such  a  way  as  to  preclude  all  ambiguity  as  to 
their  authorship.^  If  every  prophecy  had  had  a  title 
from  the  first  the  task  of  the  editor  would  have  been 
simple ;  or  if  he  did  not  aim  at  an  exact  arrangement 
we  could  easily  have  rearranged  the  series  for  ourselves. 
But  there  are  some  prophecies,  such  as  those  which 
occupy  the  last  twenty-seven  chapters  of  Isaiah,  which 
have  no  title  at  all,  and  in  some  other  cases  there  is  con- 
clusive evidence  that  the  titles  are  not  original,  because, 
in  point  of  fact,  they  are  incorrect.  In  the  absence  of 
precise  titles  giving  names  and  dates  to  each  separate 
prophecy,  an  editor  labouring  after  the  time  of  Ezra 
would  be  quite  as  much  at  a  loss  as  a  modern  critic,  if 
he  made  it  his  task  to  give  what  is  now  called  a  critical 
edition  of  the  remains  that  lay  before  him.  But 
ancient  editors  did  not  feel  the  need  of  an  edition 
.digested   according    to   tlie   rules   of  modern   literary 


212  THE  WRITINGS  lect.  v. 

workmanship.  Their  main  ohject  was  to  get  together 
everything  that  they  could  find,  and  arrange  their 
material  in  volumes  convenient  for  private  study  or  use 
in  the  synagogue.  In  those  days  one  could  not  plan 
the  number  of  volumes,  the  number  of  letters  in  a 
page,  and  the  size  and  form  of  the  pages,  with  the 
freedom  to  which  the  x^rinting  press  has  accustomed 
us ;  the  cumbrous  and  costly  materials  of  ancient  books 
limited  all  schemes  of  editorial  disposition.  In  ancient 
books  the  most  various  treatises  are  often  comprised  in 
one  volume ;  the  scribe  had  a  certain  number  of  skins, 
and  he  wished  to  fill  them.  Thus,  even  in  the  minor 
collections  that  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  editor  of  the 
prophets,  a  prophecy  of  Isaiah  and  one  from  another 
source  might  easily  occupy  the  same  roll ;  copies  were 
not  so  numerous  that  it  was  always  possible  to  tell  by 
comparison  of  many  MSS.  what  pieces  had  always 
stood  together,  and  what  had  only  come  together  by 
accident ;  and  so,  taking  all  in  all,  we  need  not  be  sur- 
prised that  the  arrangement  is  imperfect  according  to 
our  literary  lights,  but  will  rather  expect  to  find  much 
more  serious  faults  of  order  than  the  lack  of  a  just 
chronological  disposition.  If  the  present  book  of  Isaiah 
has  itself  been  made  up  from  several  j\ISS.,  a  conclusion 
which  the  lack  of  chronological  order  renders  almost 
inevitable,  we  must  deem  it  probable  that  at  the  end 
of  some  of  these  MSS.  prophecies  not  by  Isaiah  at  all 
may  have  been  written  in  to  save  waste  of  the  costly 
material ;  and  so,  when  the  several  small  books  came  to 


LECT.  V.  OF  ISAIAH.  213 

be  joined  together,  prophecies  by  other  hands  would 
get  to  be  embedded  in  the  text  of  Isaiah,  no  longer  to 
be  distinguished  except  by  internal  evidence.  That 
what  thus  appears  as  possible  or  even  probable  actually 
took  place  is  the  common  opinion  of  modern  critics. 
We  must  not  accept  this  opinion  without  examination, 
and  we  cannot  now  pause  to  go  over  every  chapter  of 
the  book  in  detail ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  Ave  cannot 
hope  to  get  a  just  picture  of  Isaiah's  life  and  work 
without  keeping  our  minds  open  to  the  possibilities 
now  suggested.  Instead  of  taking  up  his  prophecies 
in  the  order  in  which  they  now  stand,  we  must  look 
for  internal  evidence  to  connect  each  oracle  with  one 
or  other  part  of  his  career.  Those  sections  of  the 
book  which  cannot  be  read  in  clear  connection  with 
any  part  of  the  prophet's  life  and  times  must  provision- 
ally be  set  on  one  side.  Even  if  they  are  Isaiah's  they 
can  have  but  secondary  importance  for  our  present 
business,  which  is  to  study  the  prophetic  word  in  the 
light  of  the  history  of  the  prophet's  own  times ;  and  in 
fact  the  more  clearly  we  come  to  see  that  the  rest  of 
the  book  is  full  of  references  to  present  history  the 
more  shall  we  be  disposed  to  ask  whether  these 
prophecies  too  have  not  an  historical  setting  of  their 
own,  but  one  which  belongs  to  a  later  stage  of  the  Old 
Testament  progress.  It  may  be  well  to  say  at  once 
that  most  parts  of  the  book  of  Isaiah  whose  authorship 
is  disputed  have  a  plain  connection  with  the  Chaldaian 
period.     Whether  this  connection  is  of  a  kind  which 


214  PERIODS  OF  lect.  v. 

justifies  us  in  holding  tliat  they  were  written  in  that 
period  is  a  question  which  ahnost  every  critic  answers 
in  the  affirmative,  but  which  cannot  be  profitably  dis- 
cussed in  these  Lectures,  because  the  discussion  involves 
an  historical  study  of  the  age  of  the  Exile.  The  critical 
l^roblems  of  Isaiah  belong  to  the  history  of  prophecy 
under  the  Chaldaian  empire,  and  even  those  scholars 
who  still  believe  that  the  whole  book  is  from  the  pen 
of  Isaiah  ascribe  the  prophecies  against  Babylon  to  his 
old  age,  after  his  active  life  was  over,  so  that  it  at  least 
can  be  completely  studied  without  them.  And  it  is 
further  agreed  that  these  prophecies  had  no  part  in 
the  great  influence  which  Isaiah  exerted  on  the  im- 
mediately subsequent  age,  so  that  for  the  whole  study 
of  the  Old  Testament  religion  before  the  Exile  we  lose 
nothing  by  leaving  them  out  of  account. 

The  period  of  Isaiah's  ministry  falls  into  three 
parts : — (1)  The  time  previous  to  the  Syro-Ephraitic 
war,  when  Judah  enjoyed  external  peace  and  apparent 
prosperity ;  (2)  The  troubles  under  the  reign  of  Ahaz, 
when  the  land  was  invaded  by  Pekah  and  Eezin,  and 
the  Judsean  monarch  became  a  vassal  of  Assyria  to 
obtain  the  help  of  Tigiath  Pileser;  (3)  The  time  of 
Assyrian  suzerainty,  when  Judah's  growing  impatience 
of  the  yoke  at  length  led  the  nation  to  intrigue  with 
Egypt,  and  exposed  it  to  the  vengeance  of  Sennacherib. 
The  last  section  of  the  prophet's  life  culminates  in  the 
great  invasion  and  marvellous  deliverance  of  the  year 
701  B.C.     We  may  not  in  every  case  be  able  to  give  a 


LECT.  V.  ISAIAH'S  MINISTRY.  215 

precise  chronological  view  of  the  progress  of  the 
prophet's  work,  but  at  least  we  may  hope  to  distribute 
his  prophecies  under  these  three  periods,  and  to  gain 
an  approximate  conception  of  the  order  of  those  which 
belong  to  the  last  and  longest  of  the  three,  especially 
by  comparing  the  many  historical  allusions  with  the 
Assyrian  monuments.  Without  going  into  detail  at  the 
present  stage  of  the  discussion,  it  may  be  convenient  to 
indicate  broadly  some  conclusions  to  which  we  are  led 
by  this  method. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  it  is  plain  that  the  general 
survey  of  the  state  of  Judah  given  in  chap.  i.  cannot 
belong  to  the  first  period  of  Isaiah's  work,  for  it  repre- 
sents the  land  as  reduced  to  the  utmost  distress  by 
foreign  invasion.  It  must  have  been  chosen  to  open 
the  book  on  account  of  its  general  character,  and  so 
displaced  from  its  proper  chronological  setting.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  prophecy  which  begins,  with  a 
separate  title,  at  chap.  ii.  1  belongs  to  the  earliest  part 
of  Isaiah's  ministry.  Here  there  is  no  allusion  to 
present  wars,  and  at  ii.  16  the  ships  of  Tarshish  appear 
as  one  of  the  glories  of  the  nation.  But  Elath,  the  only 
Judsean  harbour,  was  taken  in  the  war  of  Pekah  and 
Eezin,  and  the  Syrians  (or  Edomites)  continued  to  hold 
the  town  long  after  (2  Kings  xvi.  6).  This  prophecy, 
or  at  least  a  connected  series  of  prophecies  which  pre- 
sumably were  published  by  Isaiah  in  a  single  book,  goes 
on  to  the  end  of  chap,  v.,  and  there  is  great  prob- 
ability that  ix.  8  to  X.  4  originally  formed  part  of  the 


216  PERIODS  OF 


close  of  this  publication.  So  common  an  accident  as 
the  displacement  of  part  of  a  manuscript  would  suffi- 
ciently account  for  the  transposition  of  these  verses  to 
their  present  place. 

The  account  of  the  inaugural  vision  of  the  prophet 
in  chap.  vi.  does  not  belong  to  Isaiah's  first  published 
work,  but  stands  at  the  head  of  a  new  series  of  pro- 
phecies dating  from  the  great  trouble  at  the  commence- 
ment of  Ahaz's  reign.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  this  arrangement  is  due  to  Isaiah  himself.  He 
might  have  many  reasons  for  not  speaking  of  the  vision 
at  the  time  when  it  occurred,  and  its  contents  form  a 
very  appropriate  introduction  to  the  series  of  prophecies 
which  it  now  precedes,  extending  from  vii.  1  to  ix.  7. 
The  prophecy  of  the  downfall  of  Damascus  (xvii.  1-11) 
plainly  belongs  to  the  same  period.  All  the  remaining 
parts  of  the  book  appear  to  be  subsequent  to  the 
Assyrian  intervention  (B.C.  734).  Most  of  them  refer 
more  or  less  clearly  to  successive  stages  in  the  progress 
of  the  Assyrians,  which  in  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge  must  often  remain  obscure.  They  cannot 
have  been  all  published  at  once,  and  probably  Isaiah 
himself,  in  reducing  selections  of  his  prophecies  to 
writinsj  from  time  to  time,  united  oracles  of  various 
date.  Chap,  xxviii.,  for  example,  must  have  been  first 
spoken  before  the  fall  of  Samaria,  but  as  we  now  read 
it  it  is  closely  connected  with  several  following 
chapters  which  seem  to  be  of  later  composition.  For 
our   present  purpose  it  is   enough   to   regard   all   the 


LECT.  V.  ISAIAH'S  MINISTRY.  217 

prophecies  of  Isaiah's  third  period  as  one  group,  without 
attempting  at  this  stage  to  arrange  them  more  exactly. 
The  parts  of  the  book  which  do  not  fall  under  any  one 
of  the  three  groups  now  spoken  of,  and  which,  as  already 
explained,  I  shall  pass  over  altogether,  are  the  prophecies 
against  Babylon,  xiii.  1  to  xiv.  23  ;  xxi.  1-10  ;  ^  the  very 
remarkable  and  difficult  section,  chaps,  xxiv.  to  xxvii. ; 
the  prophecy  against  Edom,  chap,  xxxiv  ;  and  the  great 
prophecy,  chaps,  xl.  to  Ixvi.,  which  is  separated  from  the 
rest  of  the  book  by  an  historical  section,  certainly  not 
Avritten  by  Isaiah  himself.  There  are  also  two  lyrical 
chapters,  xii.  and  xxxv.,  of  which  the  latter  seems  to 
go  with  chap,  xxxiv.  Both  are  so  unlike  the  style  of 
Isaiah  that  it  wdll  be  prudent  to  pass  them  over  also.^ 

Although  Isaiah  did  not  publish  the  account  of  the 
vision  in  which  he  received  his  prophetic  consecration 
until  the  second  period  of  his  work  (chap,  vi.),  it  is 
reasonable  that  we  should  take  it  first.  In  the  year  of 
Uzziah's  death,  he  tells  us,  he  saw  Jehovah  seated  on  a 
lofty  throne,  while  the  skirts  of  His  kingly  robes  filled 
the  palace.  Jehovah's  palace  is  the  common  name  of  the 
great  temple  at  Jerusalem,  and  the  features  of  the  temple 
are  reproduced  in  the  vision.  There  was  an  altar  (ver.  6), 
a  threshold  (ver.  4,  where  for  iwsts  of  the  door  read  sockets 
of  the  thresholds),  and  a  cloud  of  smoke  filling  the  house 
during  the  adoration  of  the  seraphim,  like  the  smoke  of 
incense  or  sacrifice  during  ordinary  acts  of  worship.  In 
the  earlier  history  of  the  temple  the  Debir  or  Holy  of 
Holies  appears  not  to  have  been  shut  off  by  doors  from 


218  ISAIAH'S 


J.ECT.  V. 


tlie  holy  place  (1  Kings  vi.  21  as  contrasted  with  ver.  31), 
and  in  like  manner  Isaiah's  palace  forms  one  great  hall, 
so  that  the  prophet  standing  at  the  door,  where  he  felt 
the  rocking  of  the  thresholds  at  the  thunder  of  the 
Trisagion,  could  see  the  seat  of  Divine  majesty  within. 
Yet  the  palace  of  Isaiah's  conception  is  not  the  earthly 
temple  but  the  heavenly  seat  of  Jehovah's  sovereignty. 
The  lofty  throne  of  Jehovah  takes  the  place  of  the  ark, 
and  the  ministers  of  the  palace  are  not  human  priests 
but  fiery  beings, — the  seraphim.  It  is  plain  that  the 
very  idea  of  the  dwelling-place  of  Jehovah  involves  to 
human  minds  the  aid  of  figure  and  symbol ;  it  cannot  be 
realised  at  all  except  under  images  derived  from  visible 
things.  The  scenery  of  Isaiah's  vision  is  of  necessity 
purely  symbolical,  and  the  form  of  the  symbol  was 
naturally  determined  by  the  old  Hebrew  conception 
of  the  sanctuary  as  God's  palace  on  earth,  while  the 
additional  feature  of  the  fiery,  winged  seraphim  appears 
to  have  been  suggested  by  a  current  conception  analogous 
to  that  of  the  cherubim.  The  Old  Testament  contains 
more  than  one  trace  of  weird  personification  of  atmo- 
spheric or  celestial  phenomena.  The  cherubim  are 
possibly  a  personification  of  the  thunder  cloud,  and  the 
seraphim  of  the  lightning.^  But  the  origin  of  the  scenery 
is  immaterial  for  the  ideal  meaning  of  Isaiah's  vision ; 
temple  and  seraphim  are  nothing  more  than  the 
necessary  pictorial  clothing  of  the  supreme  truth  that 
in  this  vision  his  soul  met  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  face 
to  face,  and  heard   the   secrets   of  Jehovah's  counsel 


LECT.  V.  VISION.  219 

directly  from  His  own  mouth.  Nor  can  it  be  of 
importance  to  us  to  determine  how  far  the  description 
is  conscious  poetry,  and  how  far  the  pictures  described 
l^assed  w^ithout  any  effort  of  thought  or  volition  before 
his  inward  eye.  Even  in  the  highest  imaginings  of 
poetical  genius  this  question  would  be  hard  to  answer ; 
much  less  can  we  expect  to  be  able  to  analyse  the 
workings  of  the  prophet's  soul  in  a  supreme  moment  of 
converse  with  God. 

In  some  quarters  a  great  deal  too  much  stress  has 
been  laid  upon  the  prophetic  vision  as  a  distinctive 
note  of  supernatural  revelation.  People  speak  as  if  the 
divine  authority  of  the  prophetic  word  were  somehow 
dependent  on,  or  confirmed  by,  the  fact  that  the  prophets 
enjoyed  visions.  That,  hovv^ever,  is  not  the  doctrine  of 
the  Bible.  In  the  New  Testament  Paul  lays  down  the 
principle  that  in  true  prophecy  self-consciousness  and 
self-command  are  never  lost — the  spirits  of  the  prophets 
are  subject  to  the  prophets  (1  Cor.  xiv.  32).  In  like  man- 
ner the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  never  appeared 
before  their  auditors  in  a  state  of  ecstasy,  being  thus 
clearly  marked  off  from  heathen  soothsayers,  who  were 
held  to  be  under  the  influence  of  the  godhead  just  in  ^  f 
proportion  as  they  lost  intelligent  self-control.  And,  ^^ 
as  the  true  prophets  never  seek  in  heathen  fashion  to 
authenticate  their  divine  commission  by  showing  them- 
selves in  a  state'  of  visionary  ecstas}^  so  also  they  do 
not  record  their  visions  as  a  proof  that  they  are  in- 
spired.    They  knew  very  well  that  vision  and  ecstasy 


220  THE  NATURE  lect.  v. 

were  common  in  heathenism,  and  therefore  could  prove 
no  commission  from  Jehovah  (Jer.  xxiii.) ;  and  so,  as  we 
have  seen,  Isaiah  did  not  even  publish  his  inaugural 
vision  at  the  time,  but  reserved  it  till  his  ministry  had 
been  public  for  years.  Moreover,  the  Hebrews  were 
aware  that  the  vision,  in  which  spiritual  truth  is  clothed 
in  forms  derived  from  the  sphere  of  the  outer  senses,  is 
not  the  highest  method  of  revelation.  In  the  twelfth 
chapter  of  Numbers,  which  belongs  to  the  part  of  the 
Pentateuch  composed  before  the  rise  of  written  prophecy, 
Moses,  who  received  his  revelation  in  plain  words  not 
involved  in  symbolic  imagery,  is  placed  above  those 
prophets  to  whom  Jehovah  speaks  in  vision  or  in 
dream.  This  view  is  entirely  conformed  to  the  con- 
clusions of  scientific  psychology.  Dream  and  vision  are 
nothing  more  than  a  peculiar  kind  of  thought,  in  which 
the  senses  of  the  thinker  are  more  or  less  conapletely 
shut  to  the  outer  world,  so  that  his  imagination  moves 
more  freely  than  in  ordinary  waking  moments  among 
the  pictures  of  sensible  things  stored  up  in  the  memory. 
Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  the  images  of  fancy  seem  to 
stand  out  more  brightly,  because  they  are  not  contrasted 
with  the  sharper  pictures  of  sense -perception,  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  power  of  the  will  to  conduct  thought 
in  a  predetermined  direction  is  suspended,  or  so  far 
subdued  that  the  play  of  sensuous  fancy  produces  new 
combinations,  which  appear  to  rise  up  of  themselves 
before  the  mind  like  the  images  of  real  things  before 
the  physical  senses.     The  ultimate  elements  of  such  a 


LECT.  V.  OF  VISIONS.  221 

vision  can  include  nothing  absolutely  new ;  the  concep- 
tions of  which  it  is  built  up  are  exclusively  such  as  are 
supplied  by  previous  waking  experience,  the  whole 
novelty  lying  in  their  combination.  So  far,  therefore, 
as  its  structure  is  concerned,  there  is  no  essential  differ- 
ence between  a  vision  and  a  parable  or  other  creation 
of  poetic  fancy ;  and  this  is  as  strictly  true  for  the 
visions  of  the  prophets  as  for  those  of  other  m'en,  so 
that  it  is  often  difficult  to  say  whether  any  particular 
allegory  set  forth  by  a  prophet  is  visionary  or  not — that 
is  to  say,  we  often  cannot  tell  whether  the  prophet  is 
devising  an  instructive  figure  by  a  deliberate  act  of 
thought,  or  whether  the  figure  rose,  as  it  were,  of  itself 
before  his  mind  in  a  moment  of  deep  abstraction,  when 
his  thoughts  seemed  to  take  their  own  course  without  a 
conscious  effort  of  will. 

In  the  experience  of  the  greatest  prophets  visions 
were  of  very  rare  occurrence.  Isaiah  records  but  one 
in  the  course  of  forty  years'  prophetic  work.  As  a  rule, 
the  supreme  religious  thought  which  fills  the  prophet's 
soul,  and  which  comes  to  him  not  as  the  result  of  argu- 
ment but  as  a  direct  intuition  of  divine  truth,  an  imme- 
diate revelation  of  Jehovah,  is  developed  by  the  ordinary 
processes  of  the  intellect.  There  is  nothing  rhapsodical 
or  unintelligible  in  the  prophetic  discourses ;  they  address 
themselves  to  the  understanding  and  the  heart  of  every 
man  who  feels  the  truth  of  the  fundamental  religious 
conceptions  on  which  they  rest.  But  all  thought  about 
transcendental   and   spiritual   things    must  be  partly 


222  THE  PROPHETIC  lect.  v. 

carried  out  by  the  help  of  analogies  from  human  life 
and  experience,  and  in  the  earlier  stages  of  revelation, 
before  the  full  declaration  of  God  in  His  incarnate  Son, 
the  element  of  analogy  and  symbol  was  necessarily 
larger  in  proportion  as  the  knowledge  of  God's  plan  was 
more  imperfect.  The  prophets,  as  we  are  taught  in  the 
first  verse  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  saw  only  frag- 
mentary parts  and  individual  aspects  of  divine  truth. 
This  is  not  a  peculiarity  of  early  revelation  alone ;  it 
applies  equally  to  early  thought  about  the  things  of 
nature,  which  in  like  manner  reveal  themselves  only  in 
isolated  aspects  to  the  primitive  observer,  so  that  all 
thought  is  in  its  beginnings  fragmentary,  and,  being  so, 
requires  to  bridge  over  gulfs  by  the  aid  of  analogy  and 
figure,  in  a  way  which  in  later  ages  is  mainly  confined 
to  the  poetic  imagination.  And  for  this  reason  early 
thought  is  less  clearly  self-conscious  than  the  scientific 
reasoningjs  of  later  time.  The  thinker  loses  himself  in 
his  thought,  and  seems  to  be  swept  on  by  his  own  ideas 
instead  of  ruling  and  guiding  them.  The  further  back 
we  can  go  in  the  history  of  human  ideas  the  more  closely 
do  we  approach  a  stage  in  which  all  new  intellectual 
combinations  are  expressed  in  symbol,  and  in  which  the 
symbol,  instead  of  being  used  only  for  purposes  of  illus- 
tration, is  the  necessary  vehicle  of  thought.  At  this 
stage  new  ideas  appear,  not  as  logical  inferences,  but  as 
immediate  intuitions,  in  which  the  volition  of  the  thinker 
has  little  or  no  share ;  and  when  such  symbolic  views 
of  abstract  or  spiritual  things  rise  before  the  mind  in  a 


VISION.  223 


moment  of  deep  abstraction,  as  tliey  most  naturally  do, 
they  may  without  impropriety  be  called  visions,  though 
they  are  not  necessarily  associated  with  the  symptoms 
of  ecstasy  in  the  strict  sense.  It  is  thus  easy  to  under- 
stand that  vision,  in  the  sense  now  defined,  was  a  pre- 
dominant characteristic  of  the  earliest  stages  of  pro- 
phecy, as  Num.  xii.  seems  to  imply,  but  that  it  fell 
more  and  more  into  the  background  wdth  the  great 
prophets  of  the  eighth  century,  as  their  conceptions  of 
spiritual  truth  became  more  articulate  and  wider  in  range. 
For  purposes  of  exposition  it  was  still  necessary  to 
make  a  large  use  of  symbol  and  analogy,  but  vision 
begins  to  merge  more  and  more  into  conscious  parable, 
till  at  length  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  we  reach  a  stage 
where  vision  altogether  disappears  in  direct  communion 
with  the  Father,  and  parable  is  no  longer  a  means  of 
thinking  out  religious  problems,  but  simply  a  method 
of  bringing  truth  home  to  popular  understanding.  At 
every  stage,  however,  in  the  history  of  prophecy  the 
spiritual  value  of  vision  is  precisely  the  same  as  that  of 
parable,  and  is  proportioned  to  the  measure  in  which 
the  symbolic  picture  presents  spiritual  things  under  a 
true  analogy.  Whether  the  prophet  merely  set  forth 
in  symbolic  form  truths  which  he  had  reached  in  another 
way,  or  wdi ether  he  consciously  devised  a  symbol,  in 
order  to  have  the  aid  of  analogy  to  bridge  over  gaps  in 
his  view  of  divine  things,  or  whether  the  symbol  rose 
up  before  his  mind  without  a  conscious  effort  of  the 
intellect,  does  not  affect  its  value  as  a  vehicle  of  spiritual 


224  THE  HOLINESS  lect.  v. 

truth.  The  vahie  of  the  symbol  or  vision  depends 
simply  on  the  fact  that  in  one  or  other  way  he  was 
guided  to  the  use  of  imagery  fitted  to  give  larger  and 
deeper  views  of  spiritual  realities. 

Of  the  spiritual  realities  impressed  on  Isaiah's  mind 
in  his  great  vision,  and  which  continued  to  exercise  a 
profound  influence  on  his  whole  career,  the  first  is  the 
holiness  of  Jehovah.  The  notion  of  holiness  belongs  to 
the  ancient  stock  of  common  Semitic  conceptions,  being 
expressed  in  all  the  Semitic  languages  by  the  same  root 
(tj>np).  The  etymological  idea  of  the  root  is  obscure. 
If  the  Arabic  commentaries  on  the  Koran  may  be 
believed,  it  is  that  of  distance  or  separation ;  but  the 
word  was  so  early  appropriated  to  a  special  religious 
sense  that  its  primary  notion  can  no  longer  be  traced 
with  certainty.^  The  traditional  etymology  seems,  how- 
ever, to  be  so  far  justified  by  usage.  To  the  Semite 
everything  divine  is  also  holy,  and  in  this  connection 
the  word  does  not  in  its  earliest  use  seem  to  convey  any 
positive  conception,  but  rather  to  express  the  distance 
and  awful  contrast  between  the  divine  and  the  human. 
The  supreme  Godhead  of  Jehovah  is  expressed  in  1  Sam. 
ii.  2  by  saying,  "  There  is  no  holy  one  like  Jehovah  ; 
yea,  there  is  none  beside  Thee."  "  I  am  God,  and  not 
man,"  says  Hosea  ;  "  the  Holy  One  in  the  midst  of  thee" 
(xi.  9).  Holiness,  in  fact,  is  the  most  comprehensive 
predicate  of  the  Godhead,  equally  familiar  to  the  Hebrews 
and  their  heathen  neighbours.  The  "holy  gods"  is  a 
standinsf  desi!]f nation  of  the  Phoenician  deities,  as  we 


LECT.  V.  OF  JEHOVAH.  ^'Ih 

learn  from  the  monument  of  Eslimunazar ;  and  so  the 
word  in  its  original  use  cannot  have  conveyed  any  idea 
peculiar  to  the  religion  of  Jehovah.  Its  force  lay  in  its 
very  vagueness,  for  it  included  every  distinctive  cha- 
racter of  Godhead,  and  every  advance  in  the  true  know- 
ledge of  God  made  its  significance  more  profound ;  thus 
the  doctrine  of  Jehovah's  holiness  is  simply  the  doctrine 
of  His  true  Godhead.  When  the  first  sound  that  Isaiah 
hears  in  the  heavenly  temple  is  the  Trisagion  of  the 
seraphim — 

"  Holy,  lioly,  holy  is  Jehovah  of  Hosts  ; 
All  that  the  earth  contains  is  His  wealth," 

we  see  that  Isaiah  does  not  find  the  starting-point  of  his 
prophetic  work  in  the  contemplation  of  any  one  attribute 
of  Jehovah — His  universal  justice,  as  it  is  set  forth  by 
Amos,  or  His  love,  as  developed  in  the  teaching  of  Hosea 
— but  in  the  thought  that  all  the  predicates  of  true  God- 
head are  concentrated  in  Jehovah,  and  in  Him  alone. 

The  prophets  who  preceded  Isaiah  did  not  preach  a 
doctrine  of  abstract  monotheism,  they  did  not  start  from 
the  idea  that  there  can  be  only  one  God  ;  but,  looking 
at  Jehovah,  Israel's  God,  as  He  was  actually  known  to 
His  people,  they  interpreted  His  being  and  character 
in  a  way  that  placed  a  great  gulf  between  Him  and 
the  nature-gods  of  the  heathen.  Thus  the  Godhead  of 
Jehovah  as  taught  by  the  prophets  meant  something 
quite  different  from  the  godhead  or  holiness  attributed 
to  idols  or  to  heathen  deities.  There  was  no  longer  any 
11 


226  THE  HOLY  ONE  lect.  v. 

meaning  in  applying  the  same  terms  to  both ;  Jehovah 
alone  was  holy,  or,  what  is  practically  the  same  thing, 
He  alone  was  God  in  the  true  sense  of  these  words.  It , 
is  this  truth  which  forms  the  foundation  of  Isaiah's  | 
teaching.  The  whole  earth  is  full  of  the  signs  of  Jeho-| 
vah's  sovereignty;  He  dwells  on  high,  exalted  over  all 
(xxxiii.  5) ;  He  reigns  supreme  alike  in  the  realm  of 
nature  and  the  sphere  of  human  history ;  and  the  crash 
of  kingdoms,  the  total  dissolution  of  the  old  order  of 
the  Hebrew  world,  which  accompanied  the  advance  of 
Assyria,  is  to  the  prophet  nothing  else  than  the  crowning 
proof  of  Jehovah's  absolute  dominion,  asserting  itself  in 
the  abasement  of  all  that  disputes  His  supremacy.  Tlie 
loftiness  of  man  shall  be  humbled,  and  the  haughtiness 
of  men  shall  be  bowed  down,  and  Jehovah  alone  shall 
be  exalted  in  that  day  (ii.  17). 

But  with  all  this  Isaiah  does  not  cease  to  regard 
Jehovah's  kingship  as  essentially  a  kingship  over  Israel. 
At  first  sight  this  may  seem  to  us  a  strange  limitation 
on  the  part  of  one  who  declares  that  all  that  the  earth 
contains  is  Jehovah's  wealth ;  but  in  reality  the  limita- 
tion gives  to  his  doctrine  a  concrete  and  practical  force 
otherwise  unattainable.  The  kingship  of  Jehovah  is  to 
our  prophet  not  a  mere  figure  but  a  literal  truth,  and  so 
His  kingdom  can  only  consist  of  the  nation  whose  affairs 
He  administers  in  person,  whose  human  rulers  reign  as 
His  representatives,  and  which  receives  its  law  and 
polity  from  His  mouth.  To  Isaiah,  therefore,  Jehovah 
is  not  simply  the  Holy  One  in  an  abstract  sense ;  He  is 


OF  ISRAEL,  227 


the  Holy  Being  who  reigns  over  Israel ;  or,  to  use  the 
prophet's  favourite  phrase,  "  The  Holy  One  of  Israel" 
When  the  idea  of  holiness  is  thus  brought  into  connec- 
tion with  Jehovah's  relation  to  His  people,  it  becomes 
at  once  a  practical  factor  in  religion ;  for  in  the  ordinary 
lansuase  of  the  Hebrews  holiness  was  not  limited  to  the 
Deity,  but  could  also  be  predicated  of  earthly  things 
specially  set  apart  for  Him.  The  sanctuary  was  a  holy 
place,  the  religious  feasts  were  holy  seasons,  material 
things  were  consecrated  or  rendered  holy  by  being  appro- 
priated to  use  in  the  worship  of  the  Deity,  or  presented 
to  the  sanctuary.  And  in  like  manner  holiness  could 
be  predicated  of  persons ;  the  prophet  who  stood  in  a 
particular  relation  of  nearness  to  the  Godhead  was  "  a 
holy  man  of  God"  (2  Kings  iv.  9) ;  the  ordinary  Israelite 
was  not  holy  in  this  sense,  but  at  least  he  was  con- 
secrated, or  made  holy,  by  special  ceremonies  before 
engaging  in  an  act  of  sacrificial  worship  (1  Sam.  xvi.  5) ; 
and  the  same  expression  is  used  of  the  ceremonial  puri- 
fication employed  to  purge  away  those  impurities  which 
excluded  an  Israelite  from  participation  in  holy  func- 
tions (2  Sam.  xi.  4).       \\  t,  \  i  v^  « ,         . , 

In  all  this,  you  observe,  there  is  nothing  proper  to 
spiritual  religion,  nothing  that  goes  beyond  the  sphere 
of  the  primitive  conceptions  common  to  the  Israelites 
with  their  heathen  neighbours.  Holy  places,  things,  or 
times  are  such  as  are  withdrawn  from  common  use  and 
appropriated  to  a  religious  purpose,  and  in  like  manner 
holiness,  as  ascribed  to  persons,  is  no  moral  attribute; 


228  ISAIAH'S  DOCTRINE  lect.  v. 

it  refers  only  to  the  ritual  separation  from  things  com- 
mon and  unclean,  without  which  the  worshipper  dare 
not  approach  the  divine  presence.  Holiness  and  immo- 
rality might  even  go  side  by  side ;  the  "  holy  women  " 
(kedeshot)  of  the  Canaanite  religion,  found  also  in  the 
popular  Hebrew  shrines,  were  Hierodouloi  consecrated 
to  immoral  purposes.  But  when  the  teaching  of  the 
prophets  brought  Jehovah's  holiness  into  sharp  contrast 
with  the  pretended  godhead  of  the  Baalim,  the  holiness 
of  Jehovah's  people  could  not  but  in  like  manner  take  a 
sense  different  from  that  which  prevailed  in  heathenism. 
So  already  in  Amos  the  licentious  practices  of  the 
Hierodouloi  are  said  to  profane  Jehovah's  holy  name 
(Amos  ii.  7).  But  with  Isaiah  this  transformation  of 
the  notion  of  Israel's  holiness  has  a  wider  scope.  He 
does  not  develop  the  idea  in  special  connection  wdth 
distinctively  religious  acts.  The  holiness  of  Israel 
rather  depends  on  the  thought  that  Israel,  in  all  its 
functions,  civil  as  well  as  religious,  is  Jehovah's  people, 
Jehovah's  property  (His  vineyard,  as  he  puts  it  in  chap. 
v.),  the  immediate  sphere  of  His  personal  interest  and 
activity.  Thus  the  whole  land  of  Judah,  but  more 
especially  Jerusalem,  the  centre  of  the  state,  is,  as  it 
were,  a  great  sanctuary,  the  lioly  mountain  of  Jehovah 
(xi.  9),  and  within  this  holy  mountain  everything  ought 
to  be  ordered  in  conformity  with  His  sanctity.  The 
requisites  of  ceremonial  sanctity  fall  altogether  into  the 
background ;  the  task  of  Israel  as  a  holy  nation  is  to 
give  practical  recognition  to  Jehovah's  holiness — that  is, 


OF  HOLINESS,  229 


to  acknowledge  and  reverence  His  Godliead^  in  those 
moral  characters  which  distinguish  Him  from  the  idols 
and  false  gods  (viii.  13;  xxix.  23).  According  to  Isaiah, 
"  the  knowledge  and  fear  of  Jehovah "  (xi.  2)  are  the 
summary  requisites  for  the  right  ordering  of  the  state  of 
Israel ;  where  these  are  supreme  the  conditions  of  Israel's 
holiness  are  satisfied.  The  ideal  condition  of  Jehovah's 
holy  mountain  is  one  in  which  the  earth  is  full  of  the 
knowledge  of  Jehovah  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea  (xi. 
9).  And,  conversely,  where  these  things  are  lacking, 
where  the  homage  due  to  Him  is  shared  by  idols,  where 
heathen  divinations  are  looked  to  instead  of  "  the  reve- 
lation and  the  testimony  "  of  Jehovah  (viii.  20),  where 
injustice  and  oppression  flourish  in  defiance  of  the  right- 
eous king  of  Israel,  the  holiness  of  His  people  is 
changed  to  uncleanness,  and  cannot  be  restored  save  by 
fiery  judgment  purging  away  the  filth  of  the  daughters 
of  Zion  and  the  bloodguiltiness  of  Jerusalem  (iv.  3,  4). 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  in  this  view  of  the  religious 
problem  of  his  times,  Isaiah  builds  on  the  foundations 
laid  by  his  predecessors  Amos  and  Hosea.  But  liis 
treatment  of  the  problem  is  more  comprehensive  and 
all-sided.  The  preaching  of  Amos  was  directed  only 
to  breaches  of  civil  righteousness,  and  supplied  no 
standard  for  the  reformation  of  national  worship — it 
left  even  the  golden  calves  untouched.  Hosea,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  a  clear  insight  into  the  right  moral 
attitude  of  the  religious  subject  to  God  ;  but  that  sub- 
ject is  to  him  the  personified  nation,  sinning  and  repent- 


230  THE  TASK  OF  lect.  v. 

iiig  as  one  man,  and  therefore  he  has  no  practical  sug- 
gestions applicable  to  the  actual  mixed  state  of  society; 
his  prophecy  leaves  an  unexplained  hiatus  between 
Israel's  present  sin  and  its  future  return  to  Jehovah. 
Isaiah,  on  the  contrary,  finds  in  Jehovah's  holiness  a 
principle  equally  applicable  to  the  amendment  of  the 
state  and  the  elevation  of  religious  praxis,  an  ideal 
which  supplies  an  immediate  impulse  to  reformation, 
and  which,  though  it  cannot  be  fully  attained  without 
the  intervention  of  purging  judgments,  may  at  least 
become  the  practical  guide  of  those  within  Israel  who 
are  striving  after  better  things.  In  every  question  of 
national  conduct  presented  by  the  eventful  times  in 
which  he  lived  Isaiah  was  ready  with  clear  decisive 
counsel,  for  in  every  crisis  Israel's  one  duty  was 
I  to  concentrate  itself  on  the  task  of  shaping  the  internal 
/  order  of  the  state  in  conformity  with  the  holy  character 
of  Jehovah,  and  to  trust  the  issue  to  His  sovereignty. 

In  very  trutli  the  task  of  internal  reform  was  more 
than  sufficient  for  one  generation.  The  whole  order  of 
the  state  was  glaringly  at  variance  with  right  concep- 
tions of  Jehovah ;  or,  in  the  language  now  familiar  to  us, 
the  actual  life  of  the  nation  was  not  holy  but  unclean. 
A  strouGf  sense  of  this  uncleanness  was  the  feelinoj  which 
sx3rang  to  the  prophet's  lips  when  he  first  saw  the  vision 
of  Jehovah's  holiness — "  Woe  is  me  !  for  I  am  undone ; 
for  I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips,  and  I  dwell  in  the  midst 
of  a  people  of  unclean  lips,  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  the 
King,  Jehovah  of  hosts."     On  the  old  ritual  view  of 


LECT.  V.  INTERNAL  REFORM.  231 

lioliness  there  was  fatal  danger  in  contact  with  holy 
things  to  any  one  ceremonially  unclean.  But  the 
impurity  of  which  Isaiah  speaks  is  impurity  of  lips — 
that  is,  of  utterance.  In  Hebrew  idiom,  a  man's  words 
{debarlni)  include  his  purposes  on  the  one  hand,  his 
actions  on  the  other,  and  thus  impurity  of  lips  means 
inconsistency  of  purpose  and  action  with  the  standard 
of  divine  holiness.  The  prophet  himself  supplies  the 
translation  of  his  metaphor  at  iii.  8  —  "Jerusalem  is 
ruined  and  Judah  is  fallen,  for  their  tongue  and  their 
doings  are  against  Jehovah  of  hosts,  to  provoke  the 
eyes  of  His  glory,"  and  the  expansion  of  this  sen- 
tence forms  the  main  burden  of  his  first  great  dis- 
course to  the  house  of  Israel  (chap.  ii.  se^.).  There 
is,  however,  a  special  reason  why,  in  this  vision,  the 
uncleanness  of  the  people  is  particularised  as  un- 
cleanness  of  lip.  The  vision  is  Isaiah's  consecration  as 
Jehovah's  messenger,  and  for  the  discharge  of  such  a 
function  "  pure  lips  "  (Zeph.  iii.  9)  are  necessary.  But  ) 
Isaiah  feels  himself  to  be  personally  involved  in  the  . 
impurity  or  unholiness  of  his  people ;  his  own  lips  are 
impure  and  unfit  for  personal  converse  with  Jehovah. 
And  so  the  act  of  consecration  is  symbolically  repre- 
sented as  the  purging  of  his  lips  by  contact  with  a  glow- 
ing stone  taken  from  Jehovah's  sacred  hearth.  "  Lo, 
this  hath  touched  thy  lips,"  says  the  ministering  seraph, 
"  and  thine  iniquity  is  taken  away,  and  thy  sin  purged." 
The  form  of  this  visionary  transaction  is  suggested  by 
the  old  familiar  symbolism  of  ceremonial  holiness.     In 


232  P  URIFICA  TION 


primitive  religious  thought,  the  idea  of  godhead  is  spe- 
cially connected  with  that  of  fresh  unfading  life,  and 
the  impurity  or  unholiness  which  must  be  kept  aloof 
from  the  sanctuary  is  associated  with  physical  corrup- 
tion and  death.  Fire  and  water,  the  pure  and  life-like 
elements,  man's  chief  aids  in  combating  physical  corrup- 
tion, are  the  main  agents  in  ceremonies  of  ritual  sancti- 
fication  (Num.  xxxi.  23  ;  this  passage  belongs  to  the 
later  legislation,  but  the  antiquity  of  the  principle  appears 
from  Josh.  vi.  19,  24).  But  fire  is  a  more  searching  prin- 
ciple than  water.  Fiery  brightness  is  of  old  the  highest 
symbol  of  Jehovah's  holiness,  and  purification  by  fire 
the  most  perfect  image  of  the  total  destruction  of  im- 
purity. To  Isaiah,  of  course,  the  fire  of  Jehovah's 
holiness  is  a  mere  symbol.  That  which  cannot  endure 
the  fire,  which  is  burned  up  and  consumed  before  it,  is 
moral  impurity.  "  Who  among  us  shall  dwell  with  de- 
vouring fire,  who  among  us  shall  dwell  with  everlasting 
burnings  ?  He  that  walketh  in  righteousness  and 
speaketh  uprightly,  that  shaketh  his  hands  from  hold- 
ing of  bribes,  that  stoppeth  his  ears  from  hearing  of 
blood  [consenting  to  bloodshed],  and  shutteth  his  eyes 
from  beholding  [delighting  in]  evil ;  he  shall  dwell  on 
high ;  his  place  of  defence  shall  be  the  munitions  of 
rocks,  his  bread  shall  be  given  him,  his  water  shall  be 
sure  "  (xxxiii.  14  sec[).  That  wdiich  can  endure  the  fire 
is  that  which  is  fit  to  enter  into  communion  with 
Jehovah's  holiness,  and  nothing  which  cannot  stand  this 
test  can  abide  in  His  sanctuary  of  Israel.     Thus  the  fire 


LECT.  V.  BY  FIRE,  233 

which  touches  Isaiah's  lips  and  consecrates  him  to  pro- 
phetic communion  with  God  has  its  counterpart  in  the 
fiery  judgment  through  which  impure  Israel  must  pass 
till  only  the  holy  seed,  the  vital  and  indestructible  ele- 
ments of  right  national  life,  remain.  As  silver  is  purified 
by  repeated  smeltings,  so  the  land  of  Judah  must  pass, 
not  once,  but  again  and  again  through  the  fire.  "  Though 
but  a  tenth  remain  in  it,  it  must  pass  again  through  the 
fire"  (vi.  13),  till  all  that  remain  in  Zion  are  holy,  *'  even 
every  one  that  is  ordained  to  life  in  Jerusalem,  when 
Jehovah  shall  have  washed  away  the  filth  of  tlie 
daughters  of  Zion,  and  purged  the  bloodshed  of  Jeru- 
salem by  the  blast  of  judgment,  and  the  blast  of  burning" 
(iv.  4  seg-.). 

That  this  is  the  law  of  Jehovah's  holiness  towards 
Israel  is  revealed  to  the  prophet  as  soon  as  his  own  lips 
are  purged.  For  the  prophetic  insight  into  Jehovah's 
purpose  is  the  insight  of  spiritual  sympathy,  and  thus, 
as  soon  as  his  sin  is  taken  away  and  his  own  life  pene- 
trated by  the  power  of  the  divine  holiness,  he  who  had 
before  heard  only  the  awful  voice  of  the  seraphim  shak- 
ing the  very  threshold  at  which  he  stood,  and  filling  his 
heart  with  terror  at  the  unendurable  majesty  of  the 
Most  High,  hears  the  voice  of  Jehovah  Himself  asking, 
"Whom  shall  I  send,  and  who  will  go  for  us?"  and  replies 
without  fear,  "  Here  am  I ;  send  me."  But  from  the  first 
he  is  made  to  know  that  his  mission  cannot  bear  sudden 
fruit,  that  no  swift  and  superficial  repentance  can  cor- 
respond to  Jehovah's  plan.     He  is  sent  to  men  who  shaU 


234  EARLIER  PROPHECIES  lect.  v. 

be  ever  hearing,  but  never  understand ;  ever  seeing 
Jehovah's  work,  but  never  recognising  its  true  import ; 
whose  heart  (or  intelligence)  becomes  more  gross,  their 
ears  more  dull,  their  eyes  veiled  with  thicker  clouds  of 
spiritual  blindness  under  the  prophetic  teaching,  who 
refuse  to  turn  and  receive  healing  from  Jehovali  till 
cities  lie  waste  without  inhabitants,  and  houses  with- 
out inmates,  and  the  land  is  changed  to  a  desert  by 
invading  foes.  And  yet  Isaiah  knows  from  the  first  that 
tliis  consuming  judgment  at  the  hand  of  the  Assyrians 
moves  in  the  right  line  of  Jehovah's  purpose  of  holiness. 
The  axe  is  laid  at  the  root  of  the  tree,  and  the  present 
state,  corrupt  beyond  the  reach  of  partial  remedies, 
must  be  hewn  to  the  ground.  But  the  true  life  of  Israel 
cannot  perish.  "  Like  the  terebinth  and  the  oak,  whose 
stock  remains  when  they  are  hewn  down,"  and  sends 
forth  new  saplings,  so  "  the  holy  seed  "  remains  as  a 
living  stock,  and  a  new  and  better  Israel  shall  spring 
from  the  ruin  of  the  ancient  state. 

Such  are  the  first  principles  of  Isaiah's  teaching  as 
he  presents  them  in  describing  his  vision  of  consecra- 
tion. Their  development  and  application  in  his  public 
ministry  must  be  reserved  for  another  Lecture. 


LECT.  VI.  OF  ISAIAH.  235 


LECTUEE    VI. 

THE    EARLIER   PROPHECIES   OF   ISAIAH. 

We  found  in  last  Lecture  that  the  arrangement  of  the 
extant  collection  of  Isaiah's  prophecies  points  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  prophet,  at  different  times  in  his 
life,  put  forth  several  distinct  volumes  embodying  the 
sum  of  certain  parts  of  his  oral  teaching.  In  the  case 
of  Amos  and  Hosea  it  is  not  clear  that  anything  of 
this  kind  took  place,  and  as  regards  Amos  we  may 
take  it  as  certain  that  his  hook  was  not  written  till  his 
whole  message  to  Israel  had  been  delivered  and  re- 
jected. Isaiah,  on  the  other  hand,  used  the  publication 
of  his  past  prophecies  as  an  agency  supplementing  his 
continued  oral  work.  He  w^as  not  left  to  the  same 
isolation  as  Amos  and  Hosea.  At  an  early  period  of 
his  ministry  we  find  him  surrounded  by  a  circle  of  dis- 
ciples, to  whom  it  would  appear  that  his  written  pro- 
phecies were  in  the  first  instance  committed  (viii.  16)  ; 
and  in  this  way  he  was  able  to  influence  a  wider 
circle  than  he  could  have  reached  by  mere  oral  preach- 
ing. The  adoption  of  this  method  of  teaching  by  books, 
and  even,  it  would  seem,  by  placards  fixed  in  some 


236  ISAIAH'S  PROPHETIC  lect.  vi. 

public  place  (viii.  1  ;  xxx.  8)/  implies  the  existence  of  a 
considerable  reading  public  ;  and  it  may  be  noticed,  as 
an  interesting  illustration  of  this  fact,  that  the  recently- 
discovered  inscription  in  the  rock-cut  tunnel  of  Siloam, 
probably  dating  from  the  lifetime  of  Isaiah,  is  no  offi- 
cial record,  but  seems  to  have  been  carved  by  the  work- 
men on  their  own  account.  Eeading  and  writing  must 
therefore  have  been  pretty  common  accomplishments 
(comp.  Isa.  xxix.  11  scq),  and  the  well-timed  publi- 
cation of  connected  selections  of  prophecy,  disseminated 
by  the  friends  of  Isaiah,  had  no  doubt  much  to  do  with 
the  solid  and  extensive  influence  which  he  gradually 
acquired.  We  must  not  suppose  that  Isaiah's  publi- 
cations were  mere  fly-sheets  containing  single  oracles. 
Each  of  them  was  manifestly  a  well-planned  digest  of 
the  substance  of  teaching  which,  in  its  first  delivery, 
may  have  occupied  several  years ;  chaps,  ii.  -  v.,  for 
example,  with  the  connected  passage  ix.  8  to  x.  4,  cover 
all  the  prophet's  teaching  before  the  war  of  734,  and 
can  hardly  have  been  published  till  the  outbreak  of 
that  war,  to  the  first  stage  of  whicli  some  of  the  allu- 
sions appear  to  point.  The  gravity  of  the  crisis 
made  it  natural  for  Isaiah  to  make  a  special  effort  to 
lead  his  nation  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  its  religious 
significance,  and  this  he  could  best  do  by  recalling  in 
summary  form  the  substance  of  the  lessons  which  year 
after  year  he  had  been  laying  before  them.  A  book 
vv^ritten  in  this  w^ay  became  something  more  than  a 
series  of  skeleton  sermons  :  it  took  the  shape  of  a  pro- 


P  UBLICA  TIONS.  237 


phetic  commentary  on  the  political  events,  the  social 
and  religious  phenomena,  of  a  certain  period  of  Judah's 
history,  in  which  predictive  announcements  were 
mingled  with  historical  retrospect.  The  peculiarities 
of  Hebrew  grammar  and  prophetic  style  often  make  it 
difficult  to  distinguish  between  narrative  and  predic- 
tion, and  the  difficulty  is  increased  by  the  fact  that  pre- 
dictions referring  to  the  near  future  were  sometimes 
fulfilled  before  they  were  set  forth  in  a  book.  If  the 
highest  object  of  the  prophet  had  been  to  show  that  he 
could  foresee  future  events,  he  would  no  doubt  have 
been  careful  to  draw  a  sharp  line  between  the  predic- 
tive and  retrospective  parts  of  his  writings  ;  but  in 
reality  prediction  was  only  one  element  in  the  work  of 
explaining  to  the  nation  what  Jehovah's  present  deal- 
ings meant,  and  how  He  desired  them  to  be  laid  to 
heart.  It  would  have  been  mere  pedantry  to  sacrifice 
this  object  to  that  of  recording  each  prediction  exactly 
as  it  was  first  made.  When  historical  events  had 
thrown  new  light  on  any  part  of  the  prophet's  argu- 
ment, he  used  that  new  light  in  its  proper  place,  and 
thus,  on  the  whole,  though  many  parts  of  Isa.  ii.-v.  are 
no  doubt  in  the  main  a  good  deal  older  than  the  com- 
mencement of  Ahaz's  reign,  we  must  take  this  section 
of  Isaiah's  prophecies  as  practically  representing  the 
stage  to  which  his  prophetic  argument  had  advanced, 
after  a  good  many  years  of  prophetic  work,  about  the 
beginning  of  the  war  with  Pekah  and  Eezin,  or,  which 
is  the  same  thing,  about  the  time  of  the  accession  of  Ahaz. 


238  BEGINNING  OF  lect.  vi. 

The  situation  of  the  kingdom  when  this  book  ap- 
peared is  clearly  described  by  the  prophet  in  his  per- 
oration, but  to  the  English  reader  the  sense  of  this  pas- 
sage is  somewhat  obscured  not  only  by  the  transposition 
of  ix.  8-x.  4  from  its  proper  place,  but  by  the  inaccurate 
translation  of  many  of  the  tenses  as  futures  instead  of 
perfects,  so  that  the  Authorised  Version  puts  as  predic- 
tion statements  which  are  really  descriptive  of  the  pre- 
sent condition  of  affairs.  To  restore  the  order  and  the 
sense  we  must  read  ix.  8  scq^.  immediately  after  v.  25, 
so  as  to  form  a  series  of  four  strophes,  describing  in  as- 
cending series  the  evils  that  had  already  fallen  on  the 
Hebrews,  and  each  closing  with  the  words,*"  For  all  this 
His  anger  is  not  turned  away,  but  His  hand  is  stretched 
out  still."  The  final  judgment  therefore  lies  still  in  the 
future,  the  Assyrians  are  the  instruments  destined  to 
accomplish  it,  and  their  approach  is  pictured  in  the  pre- 
dictive passage,  v.  26-30,  with  which  the  book  closes. 

Kinsj  Jotham,  the  last  of  a  series  of  stroncj  and 
generally  successful  princes,  had  died  at  a  critical 
moment,  when  Pekah  and  Eezin  were  maturing  their 
plans  against  his  kingdom.  The  opposing  parties  in 
Northern  Israel  suspended  their  feuds  to  make  common 
cause  against  Judah  (ix.  21),  and  the  proud  inhabitants 
of  Samaria  hoped  by  this  policy  to  more  than  restore 
the  prestige  forfeited  in  previous  years  of  calamity  (ix. 
9,  10).  At  the  same  time  the  Syrians  began  to  operate 
in  the  eastern  dependencies  of  Judah,  their  aim  being 
to  possess  themselves  of  the  harbour  of  Elath  on  the 


LECT.  VI.  THE  REIGN  OF  AHAZ.  239 

Eed  Sea,  while  the  Philistines  attacked  the  Judseans  in 
the  rear,  and  ravaged  the  fertile  lowlands  (ix.  12  ;  2 
Kings  xvi.  6).  A  heavy  and  sudden  disaster  had 
already  fallen  on  the  Judtean  arms,  a  defeat  in  which 
head  and  tail,  palm-branch  and  rush — that  is,  the  highest 
officers  and  the  common  multitude  of  the  host — had  been 
mowed  down  in  indiscriminate  slaughter  (ix.  14).^ 
Ahaz  was  no  fit  leader  in  so  critical  a  time  ;  his  character 
was  petulant  and  childish,  his  policy  was  dictated  in  the 
harem  (iii.  12).  Nor  was  the  internal  order  of  the  state 
calculated  to  inspire  confidence.  Wealth,  indeed,  had 
greatly  accumulated  in  the  preceding  time  of  prosperity, 
but  its  distribution,  as  we  saw  in  last  Lecture,  had  been 
such  that  it  weakened  rather  than  added  strength  to  the 
nation.  The  rich  nobles  were  steeped  in  sensual  luxury 
(v.  11  seq^),  the  Court  was  full  of  gallantry,  and  feminine 
extravagance  and  vanity  gave  the  tone  to  aristocratic 
society  (iii.  16  scq^.  \  comp.  iii.  12,  iv.  4),  which,  like  the 
nohlesse  of  France  on  the  eve  of  the  Eevolution,  was  ab- 
sorbed in  gaiety  and  pleasure,  while  the  masses  were 
ground  down  by  oppression,  and  the  cry  of  their  dis- 
tress filled  the  land  (iii.  15  ;  v.  7).  All  social  bonds 
were  loosed  in  the  universal  reign  of  injustice,  every 
man  was  for  himself  and  no  man  for  his  brother  (ix.  19 
seq.).  The  subordination  of  classes  was  undermined 
(iii.  4,  5),  things  were  tending  to  a  pass  w^hen  ere  long 
none  would  be  found  willing  to  accept  a  post  of  autho- 
rity, or  to  risk  his  own  substance  for  the  good  of  the 
state  (iii.  6  seq^). 


240  BEGINNING  OF  lect.  vi. 

We  must  not  suppose  that  to  ordinary  political 
observers  at  the  time  these  internal  wounds  of  the  state 
appeared  so  aggravated  and  so  patent  as  Isaiah  repre- 
sents them.  The  best  Oriental  administrations  permit 
abuses  which  we  would  think  intolerable,  and  in  par- 
ticular the  wrongs  and  sufferings  of  the  poor  make  little 
noise,  and  find  no  ready  access  to  the  supreme  seat  ot 
government.  The  attention  of  the  rulers  was  doubtless 
directed  almost  exclusively  to  the  dangers  that  menaced 
from  without ;  their  schemes  of  deliverance  took  the 
shape  of  warlike  preparations,  or  were  already  turned 
to  the  project  of  an  alliance  with  Assyria.  As  yet  they 
saw  no  cause  for  despondency ;  the  accumulated  re- 
sources of  the  nation  were  not  exhausted,  and  the  cha- 
racteristic Hebrew  obstinacy,  which  in  later  times  more 
than  once  plunged  the  Jews  into  hopeless  struggle  with 
irresistible  antagonists,  was  backed  up  by  false  religious 
confidence.  The  idols  of  which  the  land  was  full  had 
not  lost  their  reputation ;  Isaiah  alone  foresaw  the 
approach  of  the  hour  of  despair  when  these  vain  de- 
liverers should  be  confronted  with  stern  realities  (x.  10, 
11),  when  the  nations  and  their  gods,  from  the  Euphrates 
to  the  Mediterranean,  should  go  down  before  the  brute 
force  of  the  Assyrian  hosts,  when  men  should  cast  their 
idols  to  the  moles  and  to  the  bats,  before  the  terror  of 
Jehovah  when  He  cometh  to  shake  the  earth  (ii.  21). 
To  the  mass  of  Israel,  the  contrast  which  Isaiah  draws 
between  Jehovah  and  the  idols  did  not  exist ;  the  idols 
themselves  were  associated  with  the  sanctuaries  of  the 


LECT.  VI.  THE  REIGN  OF  AHAZ.  241 

national  Deity,  and  men  fancied,  as  the  house  of  Eph- 
raini  fancied  in  the  days  of  Amos,  that  Jehovah  had  no 
part  in  the  calamities  that  befell  His  land  ;  that  though 
He  was  inactive  for  the  moment,  He  must  soon  interpose, 
and  could  only  interpose  on  behalf  of  Judah.  But  to 
Isaiah,  these  supposed  tokens  of  Jehovah's  temporary 
inactivity  had  quite  an  opposite  sense  :  they  proved  that 
the  King  of  Israel  had  risen  for  judgment,  and  would  no 
longer  pass  by  the  sins  of  the  state.  "Jehovah  setteth 
Himself  to  plead,  and  standeth  up  to  judge  His  people ; 
Jehovah  will  enter  into  judgment  with  the  elders  of  His 
people,  and  the  princes  thereof,  for  ye  have  eaten  up  the 
vineyard,  the  spoil  of  the  poor  is  in  your  houses.  What 
mean  ye  that  ye  beat  my  people  to  pieces,  and  grind 
the  faces  of  the  poor  ?  saith  the  Lord  Jehovah  of  hosts  " 
(iii.  13  seq?).  "  The  vineyard  of  Jehovah  of  hosts  is 
the  house  of  Israel,  and  the  men  of  Judah  His  pleasant 
planting  :  and  He  looked  for  judgment,  but  behold  blood- 
shed ;  for  righteousness,  but  behold  a  cry  "  (v.  7).  Once 
and  again  does  Isaiah  expose  the  strange  delusion  which 
could  see  no  connection  between  the  sins  of  the  state 
and  the  threatening  conjunction  of  foreign  powers, 
the  insensate  conduct  of  the  nobles  who  went  on  their 
course  of  lawlessness  and  riot  without  turning  their  eyes 
to  the  work  of  Jehovah  or  regarding  tlie  operation  of 
His  hands  (v.  12).  The  whole  perceptions  of  these  men 
were  radically  perverted  :  they  called  evil  good  and  good 
evil,  they  put  darkness  for  light  and  light  for  darkness, 
bitter  for  sweet  and  sweet  for  bitter  (v.  20).     Far  from 


242  JEHOVAH  EXALTED  lect.  vi. 

reading  the  lesson  of  Jehovah's  displeasure,  written  so 
plainly  on  the  page  of  contemporary  events,  they  longed 
for  His  interposition  as  the  cure  for  all  their  troubles. 
"  Let  Him  make  speed,"  they  said,  "  and  hasten  His  work 
that  we  may  see  it,  and  let  the  purpose  of  the  Holy  One 
of  Israel  draw  nigh  that  we  may  know  it."  Thus,  in 
their  blindness  to  all  moral  distinctions  and  to  all  the 
signs  of  the  times,  they  went  on  courting  destruction, 
"  drawing  guilt  upon  themselves  with  the  cords  of  their 
vain  policy,  and  sin  as  it  were  with  a  cart  rope."  In 
their  own  conceit  they  were  full  of  political  wisdom 
(v.  21),  but  they  had  no  eyes  for  the  cardinal  truth 
which  Isaiah  saw  to  outweigh  every  principle  of  earthly 
politics — that  Jehovah  was  the  one  dispenser  of  good 
and  evil  to  Israel,  and  that  the  law  of  His  rule  was  the 
law  of  holiness  and  righteousness  ;  "  They  had  cast  away 
the  revelation  of  Jehovah  of  hosts,  and  despised  the 
word  of  the  Holy  One  of  Israel "  (v.  24).  And  now  this 
whole  fabric  of  sin  and  self-delusion  must  perish  in 
a  moment  utterly,  like  chaff  and  stubble  at  the  touch 
of  fire  (v.  24).  "  Sheol  [the  under  world]  hath  enlarged 
its  maw  and  opened  its  mouth  without  measure,  and 
her  glory  and  her  multitude  and  her  pomp  and  the 
joyous  ones  of  Zion  shall  descend  into  it.  And  the 
mean  man  shall  be  brought  dowm,  and  the  mighty  man 
shall  be  humbled,  and  the  eyes  of  the  lofty  shaU  be 
humbled.  And  Jehovah  of  hosts  shall  be  exalted  in 
judgment,  and  the  Holy  God  shall  be  sanctified  in 
righteousness  "  (v.  14  seq^.     Jehovah  shall  be  exalted, 


LECT.  VI.  IN  JUDGMENT.  243 

for  it  is  at  His  call  that  the  messengers  of  destruction 
are  hastening  towards  the  doomed  nation.  Past  and 
present  warnings  have  been  alike  despised.  What 
Israel  has  already  suffered  has  brought  no  fruit  of  re- 
pentance, and  Jehovah's  wrath  is  still  unappeased.  And 
now  "  He  lifts  up  a  standard  to  far  nations  and  hisses  to 
them  from  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  behold  the}^  come 
with  speed  swiftly.  None  is  weary,  and  none  stumbleth 
among  them  ;  they  slumber  not  nor  sleep  ;  the  girdle 
of  their  loins  is  not  loosed,  nor  the  latchet  of  their  shoe 
broken.  Their  arrows  are  sharp,  and  all  their  bows 
bent ;  their  horses'  hoofs  are  like  the  flint,  and  their 
chariot  wheels  like  the  whirlwind.  Their  roar  is  like 
the  lioness,  they  roar  like  young  lions,  moaning  and 
seizing  the  prey  and  carrying  it  off  safe,  and  none  can 
deliver."  The  roar  of  the  lion  marks  the  moment  of  his 
spring,  the  sullen  moaning  that  follows  show^s  that  the 
prey  is  secured.  Judah  lies  prostrate  in  the  grasp  of 
the  Assyrian,  and  over  all  the  land  no  sound  is  heard 
but  the  deep  growl  of  brutal  ferocity  as  he  crouches  over 
the  helpless  victim.  "  In  that  day  he  shall  moan  over 
Judah  like  the  moaning  of  the  sea,  when  the  mariner 
looks  for  land,  but  lo,  darkness  hems  him  in,  and  light 
is  turned  to  darkness  by  the  clouds"  (v.  26-30). 

This  picture  of  judgment,  you  observe,  has  all  the 
precision  due  to  the  fact  that  Isaiah  is  not  describing 
an  unknown  danger,  but  one  very  real  and  imminent — 
the  same  danger  which  Amos  had  seen  so  clearly  a 
generation  before.     The  intervention  of  Assyria  in  the 


244  JEHOVAH  EXALTED  lect.  vi. 

affairs  of  the  Palestinian  states  could  not  in  the  nature 
of  things  involve  anything  less  than  a  complete  dissolu- 
tion of  the  old  balance  of  power,  and  of  the  whole  poli- 
tical system.  There  was  nothing  in  the  circle  of  the 
nations  round  about  Judah  which  could  offer  successful 
resistance  to  the  well-directed  force  of  a  great  and 
disciplined  martial  power,  and  the  smallest  acquaint- 
ance with  the  politics  of  Assyria  w^as  sufficient  to  prove 
that  the  absorption  of  the  Mediterranean  seaboard  by 
that  empire  was  only  a  question  of  time,  and  could  in 
no  case  be  very  remote.  The  politicians  of  Judah  were 
blinded  to  this  truth  by  their  characteristic  Semitic 
vanity,  by  the  truly  Oriental  indolence  wliich  refuses 
to  look  beyond  the  moment,  but  above  all  by  a  false 
religious  confidence.  The  kind  of  Jehovah  worship 
which  had  not  learned  to  separate  the  God  of  Israel 
from  idols,  which  left  men  to  seek  help  from  the  work 
of  their  own  hands,  was  only  possible  to  those  who 
knew  as  little  about  the  world  as  about  God.  A  just 
estimate  even  of  the  natural  factors  of  the  world's  history 
would  have  shown  them  that  the  Assyrian  was  stronger 
than  the  idols,  though  it  needed  a  prophet's  faith  to 
perceive  that  there  was  a  God  in  Israel  to  whose  com- 
mands Assyria  itself  was  constrained  to  yield  uncon- 
scious obedience.  But,  in  truth,  the  leaders  of  Judah 
dared  not  face  the  realities  of  a  situation  which  broke 
through  all  their  established  ideas,  which  offered  no 
prospect  but  despair.  Isaiah  had  courage  to  see  and 
proclaim  the  truth,  because  he  was  assured  that  amidst 


LECT.  VI.  IN  JUDGMENT.  245 

the  crash  of  nations  Jehovah's  throne  stood  unmoved, 
and  He  was  exalted  when  all  was  abased. 

The  whole  meaning  of  the  impending  crisis  is 
summed  up  by  the  prophet  in  a  sentence  already  quoted  : 
"Jehovah  of  hosts  shall  be  exalted  in  judgment,  and 
the  Holy  God  shall  be  sanctified  in  righteousness." 
But  to  understand  the  scope  of  the  judgment,  the  plan 
of  the  righteousness  here  spoken  of,  we  must  be  on  our 
guard  against  taking  these  terms  in  such  a  technical 
sense  as  they  bear  in  modern  theology.  When  Isaiah 
speaks  of  Jehovah's  righteousness,  he  does  so  because 
he  thinks  of  Jehovah  as  the  King  of  Israel,  discharging 
for  His  people,  either  directly  or  through  His  human 
vicegerent,  all  the  ordinary  functions  of  civil  govern- 
ment. Jehovah's  righteousness  is  nothing  else  than 
kingly  righteousness  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word, 
and  its  sphere  is  the  sphere  of  His  literal  sovereignty — 
that  is,  the  land  of  Israel.  Jehovah's  great  work  of 
judgment  by  the  hand  of  the  Assyrians  has  for  its 
object  precisely  the  same  things  as  a  good  and  strong 
human  judge  aims  at — not  the  transformation  of  the 
hearts  of  men,  but  the  removal  of  injustice  in  the  state, 
the  punishment  of  offenders,  the  re-establishment  of 
law  and  order,  and  the  ultimate  felicity  of  an  obedient 
nation,  "  I  will  again  bring  my  hand  upon  thee,"  says 
Jehovah,  "  smelting  out  thy  dross  as  with  lye,  and 
taking  away  all  thine  alloy  ;  and  I  will  make  thy 
judges  to  be  again  as  aforetime,  and  thy  counsellors  as 
at  the  beginning  ;  thereafter  thou  shalt  be  called  the 


246  SIN  AND 


city  of  righteousness,  the  faithful  city"  (i.  25,  26).  No 
doubt  when  Isaiah  limits  the  divine  purpose  to  the 
restitution  of  Jerusalem  as  it  had  once  been,  we  must 
remember  that  the  days  of  David  were  idealised  in  the 
nation's  memory.  It  is  the  virtues  of  ancient  Jerusalem 
that  are  to  be  reproduced  without  its  long-forgotten 
faults  ;  but  for  all  that  it  is  plain  that  the  ideal  is 
simply  a  state  perfectly  well  ordered — not  a  heavenly 
state,  in  which  every  individual  is  free  from  all  sin  in 
the  New  Testament  sense  of  the  word.  It  is  such  an 
ideal  as  would  be  actually  realised  if  the  judges  and 
counsellors  of  the  nation  again  were  what  they  ouglit 
to  be  in  a  land  whose  king  is  the  Holy  One  of  Israel.^ 

The  limitation  of  Isaiah's  conception  of  the  divine 
judgment  leads  us  at  once  to  observe  the  corresponding 
limitation  in  his  use  of  the  words  sin,  sinners,  and  the 
like.  Sin,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  former  Lecture  (p.  102 
seq.),  is  to  the  Hebrew  any  action  that  puts  a  man  in  the 
wrong  with  one  who  has  the  power  to  make  him  rue  it. 
Sin  against  Jehovah,  therefore,  is  such  conduct  as  He 
must  take  cognisance  of  in  His  quality  of  king  and 
supreme  judge  in  Israel,  not  sin  in  the  New  Testament 
sense,  but  on  the  one  hand  offences  against  social 
righteousness  and  equity,  and  on  the  other  hand  idol- 
atry, which  is  the  denial  of  Jehovah's  true  kingship. 
Hence  the  prophet  has  no  doctrine  of  universal  sinful- 
ness. The  Israelites  are  divided  into  two  classes — the 
righteous,  who  have  nothing  to  fear  from  Jehovah,  and 
the  wicked,  whom  His  presence  fills  with  terror  (xxxiii. 


LECT.  VI.  JUDGMENT.  247 

14).  Weal  to  the  righteous,  who  shall  eat  the  fruit  of 
their  doings ;  woe  to  the  wicked,  because  the  deserv- , 
ing  of  his  hands  shall  be  rendered  to  him — is  the  law  of 
Jehovah's  justice  (iii.  10,  11) ;  and  when  it  is  executed 
in  all  its  fulness  the  ideal  of  His  sovereignty  is  fully 
realised.  The  redemption  of  Zion  is  conceived  in  the 
same  plain  sense :  "  Zion  shall  be  redeemed  by  judg- 
ment, and  those  in  her  that  return  by  righteousness " 
(i.  27).  The  redemption  is  not  the  spiritual  deliver- 
ance of  the  individual  but  the  deliverance  of  the  state, 
which  can  only  be  accomplished  by  purging  out  the 
sinners  and  their  sin,  and  bringing  back  the  remnant  of 
the  nation  to  obedience  and  right  worship.  If  more 
than  this  were  meant  there  would  be  no  truth  in  Isaiah's 
representation  of  the  fall  of  the  might  and  independence 
of  the  state  before  Assyria  as  the  means  of  redemption. 
But  when  we  take  the  prophet's  doctrine  as  he  sets  it 
forth  himself,  without  complicating  it  by  importing 
ideas  from  a  later  stage  of  revelation,  the  force  of  his 
argument  at  once  becomes  plain.  The  first  condition 
of  social  reformation  was  the  downfall  of  the  corrupt 
rulers.  While  they  held  the  reins  there  could  be 
no  hope  of  amendment,  and  in  the  approach  of  the 
Assyrians  Isaiah  sees  the  appointed  means  to  level  their 
pride  and  tyranny  with  the  dust.  And  in  like  manner 
the  first  condition  of  true  worship  and  homage  to 
Jehovah  was  that  men  should  recognise  the  nothingness 
of  the  idols,  which  the  Assyrians  in  all  their  campaigns 
broke  down  or  carried  away  captive. 


248  THE  SPRING  lect.  vi. 

Thus  Isaiah  looks  forward  without  fear  to  the  day 
when  all  the  might  of  Judah  shall  be  brought  low, 
when  great  and  fair  houses  shall  be  without  inhabitant 
(v.  9),  when  wandering  shepherds  shall  range  at  will 
over  the  rich  corn-land  and  fertile  vineyards  of  Judah 
(v.  17).  He  does  so  because  Jehovah  rules  as  Israel's 
king  in  the  midst  of  judgment,  and  rules  in  grace  for 
the  remnant  of  Israel  (iv.  2).  In  the  day  of  utmost 
distress,  when  the  land  is  shorn  of  all  the  artificial 
glories  of  man's  making,  "the  spring  of  Jehovah*  shall 
be  the  beauty  and  the  wealth,  the  fruit  of  the  land  shall 
be  the  pride  and  the  ornament  of  them  that  are  escaped 
of  Israel  "  (iv.  2).  Once  more,  as  in  the  old  days,  the 
Hebrews  shall  recognise  the  fruits  of  the  land  of  Canaan, 
the  simple  blessings  of  agricultural  life,  as  the  best 
tokens  of  Jehovah's  goodness,  the  best  basis  of  a  happy 
and  God-fearing  life,  and  shall  cease  to  regret  the  lost 
splendours  of  the  time  when  the  land  was  full  of  silver 
and  gold,  of  horses  and  chariots,  and  all  the  apparatus 
of  human  luxury  and  grandeur.  All  that  remain  in 
Zion  shall  be  holy,  for  the  filth  of  the  daughters  of  Zion 
and  the  blood-guiltiness  of  Jerusalem  have  been  purged 
away  by  the  fiery  blast  of  judgment.  Jehovah  Himself 
shall  overshadow  His  people,  protecting  them  from  all 
ill.  His  glory,  manifested  in  smoke  and  cloud  by  day, 
in  flaming  fire  by  night,  shall  rest  like  a  canopy  over 
Mount  Zion.  He  shall  be  their  shadow  by  daytime 
from  the  heat,  their  hiding-place  and  covert  from  storm 
and  from  rain  (iv.  3  scq^. 


LECT.  VI.  OF  JEHOVAH.  249 

The  picture  of  Israel's  restoration,  we  observe, 
has  none  of  that  full  precision  of  detail  with  which 
the  prophet  describes  the  present,  or  delineates  the 
approaching  judgment.  The  method  of  Jehovah's 
ideal  government  is  as  yet  all  vague;  the  grand  but 
undefined  image  of  overshadowing  glory  expresses  no 
more  than  the  constant  presence  and  all-sufficient 
help  of  the  King  of  Israel.  And  this  is  the  law  of 
all  prophecy.  It  is  a  great  fallacy  to  suppose  that 
the  seers  of  Israel  looked  into  the  far  future  with  the 
same  clear  perception  of  detail  which  belongs  to  their 
contemplation  of  present  events.  The  substance  of 
Messianic  prophecy  is  ideal,  not  literal ;  the  business 
of  the  prophet  is  not  to  anticipate  history,  but  to  sig- 
nalise the  principles  of  divine  grace  which  rule  the 
future,  because  they  are  eternal  as  Jehovah's  purpose. 
True  faith  asks  nothing  more  than  this  :  it  is  only  un- 
belief that  inquires  after  times  and  seasons,  that  claims 
to  know  not  only  what  Jehovah's  purpose  is  as  it  bears 
on  the  practical  questions  of  the  present,  but  how  it 
will  shape  itself  to  needs  and  circumstances  still  re- 
mote. The  law  of  prophetic  revelation  is  that  already 
laid  down  by  Amos  ;  the  Lord  Jehovah  does  nothing 
without  revealing  His  secret  to  His  servants  the  prophets. 
He  deals  with  them  as  a  prudent  king  does  with  a 
trusty  counsellor.  He  never  leaves  them  in  the  dark 
as  to  the  scope  and  meaning  of  His  present  action,  and 
He  opens  the  future  as  far  as  is  requisite  to  this  end, 
but  not  further. 


250  THE  WAR  WITH  lect.  vi. 

The  vain  confidence  of  the  rulers  of  Judah  described 
by  Isaiah  in  his  first  prophetic  book,  was  rudely  shaken 
by  the  progress  of  the  war  with  Pekah  and  Eezin. 
"  It  was  told  the  house  of  David,  saying,  Syria  is  con- 
federate ^  with  Damascus.  And  the  heart  of  the  king 
and  the  hearts  of  his  people  were  moved  as  the  trees  of 
the  wood  are  moved  by  the  wind  "  (vii.  2).  The  plan 
of  the  confederates  was  directed  to  the  entire  destruc- 
tion of  the  Davidic  dynasty,  and  a  new  king  of  Judah 
had  already  been  selected  in  the  person  of  a  certain 
"  son  of  Tabeel "  (vii.  6).  The  allies  obtained  important 
successes,  the  Syrians  in  particular  making  themselves 
masters  of  the  port  of  Elath.  But  an  attempt  to  take 
Jerusalem  failed,  and  though  Ahaz  was  hard  pressed  on 
every  side,  his  position  could  not  be  called  desperate 
while  he  still  held  the  strongest  fortress  of  Palestine. 
On  the  part  of  the  king  and  his  princes,  however,  un- 
reasoning confidence  had  given  place  to  equally  unrea- 
soning panic.  They  saw  only  one  way  of  escape,  namely, 
to  throw  themselves  on  the  protection  of  Assyria.  They 
were  well  aware  that  the  only  conditions  on  which  this 
protection  would  be  vouchsafed  were  acceptance  of  the 
Assyrian  suzerainty  with  the  payment  of  a  huge  tribute, 
and  an  embassy  was  despatched  laden  with  all  the 
treasures  of  the  palace  and  the  temple,  to  announce 
that  the  king  of  Judah  regarded  himself  as  "  the  servant 
and  the  son  "  of  Tiglath  Pileser  (2  Kings  xvi.  7  scc[). 
The  ambassadors  had  no  difficulty  in  attaining  their 
object,  which  perfectly  fell  in  with  the  schemes  of  the 


LECT.  VI.  PEKAH  AND  REZIN.  251 

Great  King.  The  invincible  army  was  set  in  motion, 
Damascus  was  taken  and  its  inhabitants  led  captive, 
and  Gilead  and  Galilee  suffered  the  same  fate.  At 
Damascus  Tiglath  Pileser  received  the  personal  homage 
of  Ahaz,  whose  frivolous  character  was  so  little  capable 
of  appreciating  the  dangers  involved  in  his  new  obliga- 
tions that  he  returned  to  Jerusalem  with  his  head  full  of 
the  artistic  and  religious  curiosities  he  had  seen  on  his 
journey.  In  a  national  crisis  of  the  first  magnitude  he 
found  no  more  pressing  concern  than  the  erection  of  a 
new  altar  in  the  temple  on  a  pattern  brought  from 
Damascus  (2  Kings  xvi.  10  seq}).  The  sundial  of  Ahaz 
(2  Kings  XX.  11),  and  an  erection  on  the  roof  of  the 
temple,  with  altars  apparently  designed  for  the  worship 
of  the  host  of  heaven  (2  Kings  xxiii.  12),^  were  works 
equally  characteristic  of  the  trifling  and  superstitious 
virtuoso,  who  imagined  that  the  introduction  of  a  few 
foreign  novelties  gave  lustre  to  a  reign  which  had  fooled 
away  the  independence  of  Judah,  and  sought  a  moment- 
ary deliverance  by  accepting  a  service  the  burden  of 
which  was  fast  becoming  intolerable.  The  Assyrians 
had  no  regard  to  the  welfare  of  their  vassals.  The  prin- 
ciple of  the  monarchy  was  plunder ;  and  Ahaz,  whose 
treasures  had  been  exhausted  by  his  first  tribute,  was 
soon  driven  by  the  repeated  demands  of  his  masters  to 
strip  the  temple  even  of  its  ancient  bronze-work  and  other 
fixed  ornaments  (2  Kings  xvi.  17  seg[.).  The  incidental 
mention  of  this  fact  in  a  fragment  of  the  history  of  the 
temple  incorporated  in  the  book  of  Kings  is  sufficient 


252  A  TTITUDE  lect.  vi. 

indication  of  the  straits  to  whicli  the  Kingdom  of  Judah 
was  reduced.  The  time  was  not  far  off  when  the  rapa- 
city of  the  Assyrian  could  no  longer  be  satisfied,  and  his 
plundering  hordes  would  be  let  loose  upon  the  land. 

At  the  moment  when  Ahaz  and  his  panic-stricken 
counsellors  were  framing  the  desperate  resolution  of 
entrusting  the  state  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  Great 
King,  Isaiah  was  the  only  man  in  Judah  who  retained 
his  composure  and  his  faith.  He  had  long  foreseen  that 
judgment  was  inevitable,  and  he  knew  that  the  disasters 
of  the  Syro-Ephraitic  war  were  only  the  prelude  of  a 
greater  catastrophe  in  which  the  scourge  of  Assyria 
must  fall  on  Judah  and  Ephraim  alike.  He  had  pro- 
claimed these  truths  when  no  one  else  perceived  the 
danger,  and  the  publication  of  the  first  volume  of  his 
prophecies  was  almost  coincident  with  the  sudden 
collapse  of  national  confidence.  But  to  Isaiah  the 
downfall  of  the  sinners  of  Judah  was  not  more  certain 
than  the  indestructibility  of  the  holy  seed,  the  deliver- 
ance of  those  who  were  ordained  to  life  in  Jerusalem.  In 
the  moment  of  panic  it  was  this  side  of  prophetic  truth 
that  asserted  its  supremacy,  and  it  did  so  in  the  form  of 
absolute  assurance  that  the  scheme  of  Pekah  and  Eezin, 
which  aimed  at  nothing  less  than  the  dissolution  of  the 
Judsean  monarchy,  could  not  succeed.  "  Take  heed," 
he  said  to  Ahaz,  "  and  be  still ;  fear  not  because  of  these 
two  smokinf]^  ends  of  firebrands,  in  the  hot  racje  of  Eezin 
with  Syria  and  the  son  of  Eemaliah.  Whereas  they 
plot  mischief  against  thee,  saying.  Let  us  go  up  against 


OF  ISAIAH.      .  253 


Juclah,  and  strike  terror  into  it,  and  conquer  it  for 
ourselves,  and  set  u^)  the  son  of  Tabeel  as  king  in  it ; 
thus  saith  the  Lord  Jehovah,  It  shall  not  stand,  and  it 
shall  not  come  to  pass.  Tor  the  head  of  Syria  is 
Damascus,  and  the  head  of  Damascus  is  Eezin,  and  the 
head  of  Ephraim  is  Samaria,  and  the  head  of  Samaria 
is  the  son  of  Eemaliah.  If  ye  will  not  believe,  ye  shall 
not  be  established  "  (vii.  4-9). 

In  translating  this  prophecy  I  follow  the  best  recent 
commentators  in  rejecting  as  irrelevant  the  clause  which 
in  the  Hebrew  text  stands  at  the  end  of  verse  8,  breaking 
the  parallelism  and  weakening  the  force  of  the  contemp- 
tuous allusion  to  Eezin  and  Pekah.  The  historical 
reference  of  the  interpolated  clause  has  become  clear  to 
us  from  the  Assyrian  monuments.  When  the  Kingdom 
of  Ephraim  fell  before  Shalmaneser  and  Sargon,  the 
Assyrians  set  up  a  vassal  kingdom  in  Samaria  {suijra, 
p.  153),  which  is  mentioned  on  the  monuments  for  the 
last  time  a  little  less  than  sixty-five  years  after  the  date 
of  Isaiah's  prophecy  to  Ahaz.  After  that  time  we  find 
the  district  of  Samaria  administered  by  an  Assyrian  pre- 
fect. It  is  plain  that  a  reference  to  this  change — which 
had  no  bearing  on  the  fortunes  of  Judah  or  the  history 
of  Israel's  religion — is  quite  out  of  place  in  the  propliet's 
argument ;  it  could  afford  no  ground  for  his  confidence, 
no  consolation  to  Ahaz's  fears.  When  Isaiaii  bids 
Ahaz  consider  that  the  whole  strength  of  his  enemies 
has  no  better  front  than  the  two  half- consumed  and 
smouldering  firebrands,  Pekah  and  Eezin,  and  then  adds. 


254  ISAIAH  AS  lkct.  vi. 

'•  If  yo  ^YiU  not  luwo  faith  yo  sluiU  not  be  established," 
he  phiinly  contrasts  the  mere  human  kwdei^  of  Ephraini 
and  l^amascus  with  the  strength  of  Jehovah,  the  King  of 
Israel.  The  same  thought  recurs  at  viii.  12,  "  Speak 
not  of  conspiracy  [or  formidable  alliance]  when  this 
people  speaks  of  conspiracy  ;  and  fear  not  what  they 
fear,  neither  be  ye  afraid.  Sanctify  Jehovah  of  hosts, 
and  let  Him  be  your  fear  and  let  Him  be  your  dread." 
The  strength  of  Judah  lies  in  its  divine  king,  against 
whom  man  can  do  nothing ;  and.  lack  of  faith  in  Him 
cuu  alone  imperil  the  continuance  of  the  state. 

The  delivery  of  this  divine  message  to  Ahaz  marks 
an  epoch  in  the  work  of  Isaiah  and  in  the  history  of 
Old  Testament  pivphecy.  In  it  Isaiah  first  appeal's  as 
a  pnictical  statesman,  no  longer  speaking  of  sin,  judg- 
ment, and  deliverance  in  broad  general  terms,  but 
approacliing  the  rulers  of  the  state  with  a  precise 
direction  as  to  the  coui*se  they  should  hold  in  a  par- 
ticular political  juncture.  The  older  prophets  of  Israel 
down  to  the  time  of  Amos  were  habitually  consulted  on 
aft\urs  of  state.  In  all  matters  of  dithcult  decision  "  the 
mouth  of  Jehovah ''  was  appe^iled  to  ;  it  was  not  doubted 
that  He  was  with  His  people,  that  the  cause  of  Jehovah 
was  the  c;^use  of  the  nation,  and  that  He  was  ever  ready 
with  prophetic  counsel  when  man's  wisdom  failed.  The 
influence  of  a  great  prophet  like  Elisha  was  therefore 
an  influence  directly  political ;  in  the  period  of  the 
Syrian  wars  Elisha  was  the  very  soul  of  the  struggle 
for  independence.     Jehovah  and  His  people  were  still 


LFXT.  VI.  A  r.TATESMAy.  t'jh 

allied  in  a  oornr;  on  oa ;%,  and  the  word  of  the  prophet 
was  acc*ipted  and  obeyed  accordingly.  The  doctrine  of 
Amos  and  Hosea  broke  throngh  the  ancient  faith  in  the 
unity  of  Jehovah's  will  with  the  immediate  political 
interests  of  the  nation.  As  the  God  of  righteousness, 
they  taught,  Jehovah  had  nothing  but  chastisement  to 
offer  to  an  unrighteous  nation ;  as  a  God  of  holy  and 
jealous  love  He  could  not  accord  the  privileges  of  a 
true  spouse  to  a  faithless  people.  The  cause  of  Jehovah 
was  for  the  present  entirely  divorced  from  the  interests 
of  IfeTael's  political  prosperity ;  the  sinners  of  His  people 
must  be  destroyed,  or,  on  Hosea's  ^^iew,  Israel  must  pass 
through  a  moral  resurrection  before  the  union  of  the 
God  "with  His  nation  could  be  restored  and  the  felicity 
of  the  Hebrew  state  again  become  the  central  object  of 
Jehovah's  solicitude.  The  picture  of  a  nation  victorious 
and  happy  in  Jehovah,  which  in  the  Blessing  of  Moses 
appears  as  realised,  or  at  least  in  the  course  of  realisa- 
tion, in  the  events  of  present  history,  becomes  to  Amos 
and  Hosea  an  ideal  of  the  future,  between  which  and 
the  sin  and  misery  of  the  present  there  yawns  a  great 
gulf,  bridged  over  only  by  faith  in  the  ultimate  victory 
of  righteousness  and  love.  The  breach  between  Jehovah 
and  His  people  brings  with  it  the  suspension  of  prophetic 
guidance  in  tiie  present  difficulties  of  the  state.  The 
new  prophecy  has  no  coxmsel  or  comfort  to  offer  to  the 
corrupt  rulers,  whom  Jehovah  has  not  appointed  and 
whose  acts  He  does  not  recognise.  When  the  people  go 
with  their  flocks  and  herds  to  seek  Jehovah  they  shall 


256  CONTINUITY  OF  lect.  vi. 

not  find  Him,  He  hath  withdrawn  Himself  from  them 
(Hosea  v.  6).  In  the  day  of  judgment  "they  shall 
wander  from  sea  to  sea,  and  run  to  and  fro  from  north 
to  south  to  seek  the  word  of  Jehovah,  but  they  shall 
not  fmd  it"  (Amos  viii.  11  se^.).  There  were  still  pro- 
phets enough  in  Israel  and  in  Judah  who  were  ready 
with  x^retended  divine  counsel,  but  the  prophets  of  the 
new  spiritual  school  do  not  recognise  them  ;  they  are  not 
true  prophets  but  diviners  (Micah  iii.).  The  dissever- 
ance of  true  prophecy  from  the  political  questions  of 
the  day  is  absolute ;  the  faith  that  looks  forward  to  a 
future  redemption  casts  no  light  upon  the  affairs  of  the 
present ;  of  them  it  can  only  be  said  that  Jehovah  has 
rejected  His  people  (Tsa.  ii.  6),  and  that  the  cup  of  judg- 
ment must  be  filled  up  before  brighter  days  dawn. 

The  position  of  Amos  and  Hosea  is  also  the  position 
of  Isaiah  in  the  prophecies  that  precede  the  campaign 
of  Pekah  and  Eezin.  Like  his  predecessors,  he  speaks 
both  of  mercy  and  of  judgment ;  but  the  vision  of  judg- 
ment fills  the  immediate  horizon,  the  picture  of  mercy 
lies  all  in  the  future,  and  its  purely  ideal  outlines  stand 
in  the  sharpest  contrast  with  the  historical  realities  of 
the  present.  The  assurance  of  Israel's  redemption  rests . 
on  an  act  of  pure  faith  ;  there  is  nothing  to  bear  it  out 
in  Jehovah's  present  relations  to  His  people.  The  work 
of  mercy  is  not  yet  seen  to  be  going  on  side  by  side 
with  the  work  of  judgment. 

This   complete   dissociation   of   the   two    sides    of 
Jehovah's    dealings   with   Israel  belongs,  it   is   plain, 


LECT.  VI.  JEHOVAH'S  WORK.  257 

to  the  fragmentary  and  imperfect  character  which  in 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  attributed  to  all  Old 
Testament  prophecy.  There  is  a  want  of  unity  in  the 
prophetic  argument.  AVhen  we  are  told  by  Amos  that 
the  overthrow  of  the  Hebrew  state  by  the  Assyrians 
has  for  its  purpose  the  destruction  of  the  sinners  of 
Jehovah's  people,  in  order  that  the  righteous  may 
remain  and  form  a  new  and  better  Israel,  we  naturally 
ask  how  this  separation  of  the  righteous  from  the  wicked 
can  be  effected  in  accordance  with  the  ordinary  laws  of 
history.  Or  when  Hosea  predicts  that  the  remnant  of 
Israel  scattered  in  Egypt  and  Assyria  shall  hear  and 
answer  the  call  of  Jehovah  in  the  day  of  restoration, 
the  question  forces  itself  upon  us  how  that  measure  of 
the  knowledge  of  Jehovah  which  the  possibility  of  such 
a  return  implies  can  be  kept  alive  in  the  midst  of  exile. 
To  such  questions  Amos  and  Hosea  supply  no  answer  ; 
they  never  tell  us  how  the  work  of  judgment  is  to  be 
limited  in  order  that  the  subsequent  redemption  may 
remain  an  historical  possibility.  And  yet  it  is  plain 
that  there  must  be  a  continuity  in  Jehovah's  work,  and 
that  in  the  midst  of  judgment  the  course  of  events  must 
be  so  shaped  as  to  give  a  basis  and  starting-point  for 
the  future  work  of  grace.  Provision  must  be  made  for 
the  unbroken  preservation  of  God's  cause  in  Israel. 
The  new  Israel  has  its  roots  in  the  old  ;  the  new  work 
of  grace  rests  on  the  same  principles  with  the  great 
things  which  Jehovah  did  for  His  people  in  the  past, 
and  the  work  of  judgment  cannot  sever  this  connection. 


258  CONTINUITY  OF  lect.  vi. 

It  is  tills  principle  which  comes  to  the  front  in  that 
second  great  group  of  Isaiah's  prophecies  to  which  chap, 
vi.  serves  as  a  preface,  and  which  contains  in  chaps,  vii.- 
ix.  7  the  summary  account  of  his  teaching  in  the  crisis 
of  the  Syro-Ephraitic  war.  The  question  which  Isaiah 
proposes  in  vi.  11  is  the  key-note  of  this  teaching. 
What  are  the  limits  prescribed  to  the  impending  judg- 
ment by  the  purpose  that  underlies  it  ?  The  certainty 
of  Jehovah's  plan  of  grace  involves  the  certainty  that 
He  will  preserve  to  Judah  in  the  coming  disaster  all 
that  is  necessary  to  make  its  realisation  a  practical 
possibility,  and  in  this  certainty  the  limits  and  measure 
of  the  judgment  are  prescribed.  Hence  the  funda- 
mental thesis  expressed  in  vi.  13 ;  the  stock  of  the 
people  of  Jehovah  is  imperishable,  the  holy  seed  retains 
its  vitality  through  all  the  work  of  judgment.  In  other 
words,  the  community  of  God's  grace  in  Israel  can  never 
be  extinguished.  Within  the  corrupt  mass  of  Judah 
there  ever  remains  a  seed  of  true  life,  a  precious 
remnant,  the  preservation  of  which  is  certain.  Beyond 
this  the  prophet  sets  no  limit  to  the  severity  of  the 
troubles  through  which  the  land  must  pass.  In  the 
first  years  of  Isaiah's  ministry  this  principle  seemed  to 
slumber ;  it  was  not  wholly  forgotten,  for  in  chap.  iv.  it 
is  the  remnant  ordained  to  life  in  Jerusalem  that  appears 
as  constituting  the  commonwealth  of  the  redeemed  in 
the  final  glory  ;  but  it  is  not  brought  into  practical  con- 
nection with  the  events  of  the  present.  But  in  the  day 
of  Judah's  calamity,  when  kings  and  princes  trembled 


LECT.  VI.  JEHOVAH'S  WORK.  259 

for  the  endurance  of  the  state,  the  doctrine  of  the 
remnant  became  immediately  practical  in  the  prophetic 
argument  that,  because  the  community  of  Jehovah  is  inde- 
structihle,  the  state  of  Judali  and  the  kingdom  of  the  house 
of  David  cannot  he  utterly  overthrown. 

We  shall  best  understand  the  bearings  of  this  pro- 
position, and  the  validity  of  the  argument  on  which 
it  rests,  by  comparing  it  with  the  prophecy  of  total 
captivity  made  by  Jeremiah  a  century  later.  Both 
prophets  start  from  the  same  inflexible  conviction  of 
the  sovereignty  of  Jehovah's  purpose ;  both  are  per- 
suaded that  the  sphere  of  that  purpose  is  the  nation  of 
Israel,  and  its  goal  the  establishment  in  the  land  of 
Canaan  of  a  nation  conformed  to  Jehovah's  holiness. 
But  at  this  point  the  teaching  of  the  two  prophets 
diverges.  Isaiah  is  convinced  that  the  dissolution  of 
the  political  existence  of  Judah  is  inconsistent  with  the 
accomplishment  of  the  divine  purpose.  Jeremiah,  on 
the  other  hand,  regards  the  temporary  suspension  of  the 
national  existence  in  the  land  of  Canaan  as  the  neces- 
sary path  to  the  future  glory.  According  to  Isaiah,  the 
holy  seed  must  remain  rooted  in  Canaan,  and  must 
remain  under  the  headship  of  the  house  of  David. 
According  to  Jeremiah,  Jerusalem  and  the  cities  of 
Judah  shall  be  desolate,  without  inhabitant,  and  the 
kingdom  of  the  house  of  David  shall  come  to  an  end, 
not  for  ever,  but  till  the  day  when  Jehovah  again 
gathers  His  captives.  Each  prophet  was  borne  out  by 
the  events  of  the  immediate  future.     Isaiah  continued 


260  ISAIAH  AND  lect.  vi. 

to  affirm  the  inviolability  of  Jerusalem  through  all  the 
dangers  of  the  Assyrian  invasion,  and  the  event  justified 
his  confidence.  Jeremiah  foretold  the  captivity  of 
Jerusalem,  and  Nebuchadnezzar  accomplished  his  pre- 
diction. But  we  should  do  little  justice  to  the  sacred 
wisdom  of  the  prophets  if  we  regarded  the  fulfilment 
of  their  predictions  as  relieving  us  from  all  further 
inquiry  into  the  reason  why  they  took  such  widely 
divergent  views  of  the  method  of  Jehovah's  sovereignty. 
When  we  look  at  Isaiah's  prophecies  more  closely  we 
see  that  in  every  one  of  them  he  directly  connects  the 
Assyrian  judgment  with  the  inbringing  of  the  final 
glory.  The  maintenance  of  the  continuity  of  Judah's 
political  existence  appears  to  him  the  necessary  con- 
dition of  the  future  redemption.  To  Jeremiah  this 
necessity  no  longer  exists ;  to  him  it  appears  possible, 
while  to  Isaiah  it  seems  impossible,  that  the  religion  of 
Jehovah  can  survive  the  fall  of  the  state.  This  differ- 
ence of  view  is  not  arbitrary,  and  is  not  to  be  referred 
to  an  unintelligible  secret  of  divine  providence  ;  it  rests 
on  a  difference  in  the  religious  condition  of  Israel  at  the 
times  of  the  two  prophets. 

We  have  already  seen,  in  speaking  of  the  fall  of 
Northern  Israel  {supra,  p.  154),  how  the  history  of  the  Ten 
Tribes,  after  the  fall  of  Samaria,  proves  that  the  religion 
of  Jehovah,  as  it  existed  in  Ephraim  in  the  eighth  cen- 
tury, was  not  able  to  survive  in  exile  from  the  land  of 
Canaan.  The  continued  existence  of  a  religion  implies 
the  maintenance  of  a  religious  community,  united  by 


LECT.  VI.  JEREMIAH.  261 

acts  of  worship,  and  handing  down  the  knowledge  of 
God  from  father  to  son  by  inculcation  not  only  of  reli- 
gious doctrine  but  of  religious  praxis.  At  the  time 
when  Samaria  fell  these  conditions  could  not  be  ful- 
filled beyond  the  limits  of  the  land  of  Canaan.  Hosea 
expressly  states  that  all  religious  observances  were 
necessarily  suspended  in  the  exile  of  Israel.  The  feasts, 
the  sacrifices,  and  all  the  other  recognised  elements  of 
the  worship  of  Jehovah  demanded  access  to  the  sanc- 
tuary. When  this  was  denied  the  whole  life  of  the 
nation  became  unclean  (Hosea  ix.  3  scc[)  ;  and  Israel 
was  divorced  from  Jehovah  (chap.  iii.).  The  relapse  of 
the  Ten  Tribes  into  heathenism  was  the  inevitable  con- 
sequence of  their  exile  ;  nay,  even  the  remnant  that 
remained  in  Canaan  was  unable  to  maintain  any  con- 
sistent tradition  of  Jehovah  worship  in  the  dissolution 
of  the  independent  monarchy,  which  had  till  then  been 
universally  regarded  as  the  visible  representation  of  Jeho- 
vah's sovereignty.  The  national  religion  of  Judah  was 
not  more  advanced  than  that  of  Ephraim.  There,  also, 
the  ideas  of  the  state  and  the  religious  community  were 
inseparable  ;  and,  though  isolated  prophets  could  see  that 
the  elements  of  religion  were  independent  of  the  tradi- 
tional sanctuaries  and  their  ritual,  there  was  no  com- 
munity of  men  confirmed  in  these  ideas,  who  could  have 
held  together  in  captivity,  and  nurtured  their  faith  in 
Jehovah  by  spiritual  exercises,  unsupported  by  those 
visible  ordinances  which  demanded  regular  access  to 
the  holy  places  of  Canaan.      In  Judah  as  in  Ephraim 


262  ISAIAH  AND  lect.  vi. 

captivity  and  the  dissolution  of  the  state  could  have 
meant  nothing  else  than  relapse  into  heathenism,  and 
the  total  obliteration  of  faith  in  Jehovah's  kingship.  In 
the  time  of  Jeremiah  all  this  was  changed,  and  changed 
mainly  by  the  work  in  which  Isaiah  was  the  chief  in- 
strument. The  abolition  of  the  provincial  high  places 
had  taught  religion  to  dispense  with  constant  oppor- 
tunity of  access  to  the  sanctuary  ;  the  formation  of  a 
consolidated  prophetic  party,  which  was  the  great  work 
of  Isaiah's  life,  provided  a  community  of  true  faith  able 
to  hold  together  even  in  times  of  persecution,  and  con- 
scious that  its  religion  rested  on  a  different  basis  from 
that  of  the  idolatrous  masses  ;  and  the  accumulation  of 
a  sacred  literature,  of  which  only  the  first  beginnings 
existed  when  Isaiah  rose,  kept  the  knowledge  of  Jehovah 
alive  in  the  Exile,  supplied  materials  for  religious  in- 
struction, and  permitted  the  development  of  the  syna- 
gogue service,  in  which  the  captives  found  opportunity 
for  those  visible  acts  of  united  worship  without  which 
no  religion  can  subsist.  Thus  the  faith  of  Jehovah  sur- 
vived the  Exile,  and  was  handed  down  from  father  to 
son  in  the  Chaldaean  dispersion  in  a  way  that  would 
have  been  impossible  in  the  Assyrian  period  ;  and  so  we 
see  that  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  measured  the  conditions, 
each  of  his  own  time,  with  equal  accuracy,  when  the 
older  prophet  taught  that  the  preservation  of  the  com- 
munity of  Jehovah's  religion  involved  the  preservation 
of  the  Judaean  state,  and  his  successor  looked  forward 
to  captivity  as  the  only  means  of  liberating  the  true 


LECT.  VI.  JEREMIAH.  263 

faith  from  entanglement  with  a  merely  political  Jehovah- 
worship. 

I  have  asked  you  to  consider  the  bearings  of  Isaiah's 
doctrine  of  the  indestructibility  of  the  Jewish  state  in 
the  light  of  later  history  and  prophecy,  because  in  this 
way  we  not  only  see  why  the  doctrine  was  true  and 
necessary  in  the  prophet's  own  time,  but  also  learn  that, 
as  the  divine  purpose  moved  onwards,  the  community 
of  grace  came  to  exist  under  new  conditions,  which 
made  the  preservation  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah  no 
longer  a  matter  of  religious  necessity,  or,  in  other  words, 
no  longer  a  matter  of  faith.  This,  however,  is  a  view  of 
the  case  which  goes  beyond  what  was  revealed  to  Isaiah. 
His  faith  in  the  preservation  of  Jerusalem  and  the 
Davidic  kingdom  amidst  the  troubles  of  the  Syrian  and 
Assyrian  wars  was  not  the  special  application  of  a 
general  principle  of  religious  truth,  which  he  had  grasped, 
and  was  able  to  express,  in  a  form  independent  of  the 
concrete  circumstances  of  his  age  and  nation.  The  pro- 
phets, as  we  have  once  and  again  had  occasion  to 
observe,  saw  only  individual  aspects  and  particular 
phases  of  divine  truth ;  they  apprehended  the  laws  of 
Jehovah's  dealings  with  men,  not  in  their  universal 
form,  but  in  the  particular  shape  applicable  to  present 
circumstances  ;  and  therefore  they  were  altogether  un- 
conscious of  the  limitations  of  the  principles  of  faith 
which  they  proclaimed.  When  we  should  say  that,  in 
order  to  preserve  alive  the  knowledge  and  fear  of  the 
true  God  and  maintain  the  continuity  of  Jehovah's  pur- 


264  ISAIAH  AND  THE  lect.  vi. 

pose  on  earth,  it  was  necessary  that  the  kingdom  of 
Judah  should  be  saved  through  the  Assyrian  troubles, 
till  the  spiritual  preaching  of  the  prophets  had  formed 
a  society  within  Israel  in  which  true  religion  could  be 
preserved  even  in  exile,  Isaiah  says  simply  and  with- 
out limitation  that  the  sphere  of  Jehovah's  purpose  and 
the  Kingdom  of  Judah  are  identical.  Jehovah  sits  as 
King  in  Zion  (viii.  18).  His  supreme  purpose  is  to 
remodel  the  kingdom  of  Judah  as  a  holy  kingdom,  and 
He  will  not  suffer  the  hostile  efforts  of  any  nation  to 
impede  the  development  of  this  design.  This  view  is 
altogether  remote  from  the  theory  of  the  popular  religion 
that  the  political  interests  of  Israel  and  the  interests 
of  Jehovah's  kingdom  are  always  identical,  that  the 
mere  fact  that  Jehovah  is  Israel's  God  secures  His 
help  in  every  emergency.  On  the  contrary,  all  the  evils 
that  have  befallen  and  are  still  to  befall  the  state  are 
Jehovah's  work,  but  amidst  these  it  remains  true  that 
Jehovah  has  a  purpose  of  grace  towards  His  nation,  and 
that  He  will  not  suffer  the  enemies  whose  attacks  He 
himself  directs  to  do  anything  inconsistent  with  that 
purpose.  And  therefore  the  first  duty  of  the  rulers  of 
Judah  is  to  make  no  vain  attempt  to  resist  Jehovah's 
chastisement,  but  to  submit  to  it  with  patience,  and  in 
the  faith  that  He  will  bring  the  troubles  of  the  nation 
to  an  end  in  His  own  way  and  in  His  own  good 
time.  The  true  policy  of  Judah  is  "  to  take  heed 
and  be  quiet"  (vii.  4).  The  safety  of  the  kingdom 
depends  on  the  maintenance  of  an  attitude  of  faitli  : 


LECT.  VI.  ASSYRIAN  ALLIANCE,  265 

"  If    ye  will   not  have   faitli,   ye   shall   not    endure " 
(vii.  9). 

The  chief  practical  object  of  Isaiah  at  this  time  was 
to  prevent  the  scheme  of  alliance  with  Assyria.  He 
saw  plainly  that  Assyria  was  the  real  danger  to  all  the 
Palestinian  states ;  Damascus  and  Ephraim  were  mere 
smouldering  firebrands.  Confident  upon  grounds  of 
faith  that  their  immediate  enterprise  could  not  lead  to 
the  dissolution  of  the  Judsean  Kingdom,  Isaiah  also  saw 
that  Pekah  and  Eezin  were  not  likely  to  trouble  Judah 
in  the  future.  It  was  indeed  as  clear  as  day  that  the 
Assyrians  would  not  suffer  extensive  schemes  of  con- 
quest to  be  carried  on  by  their  ow^n  rebellious  vassals. 
If  Ahaz  had  not  called  in  the  aid  of  Tiglath  Pileser,  his 
own  interests  would  soon  have  compelled  the  Assyrian 
to  strike  at  Damascus  ;  and  so,  if  the  Jud^ean  king  had 
had  faith  to  accept  the  prophet's  assurance  that  the  im- 
mediate danger  could  not  prove  fatal,  he  would  have 
reaped  all  the  advantages  of  the  Assyrian  alliance  with- 
out findiog  himself  in  the  perilous  position  of  a  vassal  to 
the  robber  empire.  As  yet  the  schemes  of  Assyria  hardly 
reached  as  far  as  Southern  Palestine.  Even  Pekah  was 
left  upon  his  throne  when  Damascus  was  led  captive, 
and  so,  if  Isaiah  had  been  followed,  Judah  would  at  all 
events  have  had  twelve  years  of  respite  before  she  met 
Assyria  face  to  face  ;  and  what  might  not  have  been 
accomplished  in  these  years  in  a  nation  once  more 
obedient  to  the  prophetic  word  ?  The  advice  of  Isaiah, 
therefore,  displayed  no  less  political  sagacity  than  eleva- 


2G6  ISAIAH  AND  THE  lect.  vi. 

tioii  of  faith  ;  but  it  could  not  approve  itself  to  a  king 
who  had  neither  courage  nor  faith  to  accept  the  pro- 
phet's assurance  that  Jehovah  would  secure  the  defeat 
of  Pekah  and  Eezin  without  the  aid  of  the  politicians  of 
Judah.  In  vain  did  Isaiah  seek  to  convey  to  the  pusill- 
animous monarch  some  part  of  his  own  confidence  by 
encouraging  him  to  ask  from  Jehovah  a  sign  or  pledge 
of  His  help.  Ahaz  w^ould  ask  nothing  ;  he  w^ould  not 
put  Jehovah  to  the  proof  (vii.  12).  The  Assyrian  alli- 
ance w^as  finally  determined  on,  and  Judah  w^as  at 
once  hopelessly  involved  in  the  toils  of  the  empire  of 
the  Tigris. 

Isaiah  received  the  refusal  of  Ahaz  as  the  loss  of  a 
great  opportunity,  a  deliberate  thwarting  of  Jehovah's 
counsel.  The  house  of  David,  he  says,  are  not  content 
to  try  the  patience  of  man  by  their  silly  obstinacy  ;  they 
must,  forsooth,  try  God's  patience  too.  The  phrase  is 
characteristic  of  the  intense  realism  with  wdiich  he  con- 
ceived the  religious  situation.  Never  for  a  moment 
doubting  the  final  execution  of  Jehovah's  purpose,  he 
yet  saw  quite  clearly  that  that  purpose  must  be  realised 
along  the  lines  of  the  historical  movement  of  the  time, 
and  that  the  conduct  of  Ahaz  interposed  a  new  difficulty, 
and  must  of  necessity  lead  to  new  and  perilous  compli- 
cations. The  first  result  of  the  Assyrian  intervention 
must  be  the  fall  of  Pekah  and  Pezin,  and  this  could 
not  be  delayed  more  than  two  or  three  years.  Before  a 
child  born  in  the  following  spring  w^as  of  age  to  say, 
"  My  father,"  and  "  My  mother,"  or  to  distinguish  good 


LECT.  VI.  ASSYRIAN  ALLIANCE.  267 

and  evil  (vii.  16  ;  viii.  4),  the  land  whose  two  kings  had 
filled  Ahaz  with  terror  should  be  forsaken,  the  riches  of 
Damascus  and  the  spoil  of  Samaria  should  be  taken  away 
before  the  king  of  Assyria.  And  then  Judah's  turn 
must  come.  "  Jehovah  shall  bring  upon  thee  and  upon 
thy  father's  house  such  days  as  have  not  been  since  the 
time  when  Ephraim  broke  off  from  Judah"  (vii.  17). 
For  with  the  fall  of  Northern  Israel,  and  the  acceptance 
by  Judah  of  the  position  of  a  vassal,  the  last  barrier 
interposed  between  the  empires  of  the  Tigris  and  the 
Nile  would  have  disappeared.  .  A  prolonged  conflict 
must  ensue  between  the  two  great  powers,  and  their 
hosts  shall  swarm  over  the  land  of  Judah  like  clouds  of 
noxious  insects  (vii.  18  seq.),  and  lay  the  \vhole  country 
utterly  waste.  The  strongliolds  of  Judah  shall  lie  in 
ruins  like  the  old  hill-forts  of  the  Amorites  after  the 
Hebrew  conquest  (xvii.  9).'''  Even  the  operations  of 
agriculture  shall  become  impossible  :  briers  and  thorns 
shall  cover  the  whole  face  of  the  land,  and  the  fair  hill- 
sides now  crowned  with  terraced  vineyards  or  blooming 
under  careful  tillage  shall  fall  back  into  jungle,  where 
sheep  and  oxen  roam  unchecked,  w^here  no  human  foot 
penetrates  save  that  of  the  archer  pursuing  the  gazelle 
or  the  mountain  partridge.  Bread  shall  be  hardly 
known  to  the  scanty  remnant  of  the  Judaeans  (vii.  22), 
honey  and  sour  milk  shall  be  the  chief  articles  of  diet, 
and  human  life  shall  be  reduced  to  its  most  primitive 
elements.^ 

Thus  far  Isaiah  does   no  more  than  describe   the 


268  RESULTS  OF  THE  lect.  vi. 

natural  consequences  of  Ahaz's  foolish  policy.  His 
anticipations  of  evil  show  a  clear  appreciation  of  the 
clangers  of  the  situation  ;  but  they  are  of  the  nature  of 
a  shrewd  political  forecast  rather  than  of  exceptional 
prediction,  and  as  the  future  actually  shaped  itself  his 
worst  anticipations  were  not  realised.  The  fall  of 
Samaria  did  not  come  so  soon  as  he  expected  (\dii.  4), 
the  conflict  of  Assyria  and  Egypt  was  deferred,  and 
when  it  actually  took  place,  thirty  years  later,  the  field 
of  battle  was  in  the  extreme  south  of  Palestine,  and 
more  in  Philistine  than  in  Judtean  territory.  The  land 
suffered  grievously  from  the  armies  which  the  Assyrian 
directed  against  Egypt,  but  the  distress  never  reached 
the  pitch  which  Isaiah  feared.  It  is  well  to  note  these 
facts,  for  they  show  us  that  the  prophetic  predictions, 
even  when  they  applied  to  the  near  future,  were  not 
always  fulfilled  in  that  literal  way  for  which  some 
theologians  think  it  necessary  to  contend.  And,  as 
Isaiah  did  not  lose  his  credit  as  a  true  prophet  when  it 
became  plain  that  he  had  overstated  the  immediate 
danger,  we  are  justified  in  believing  that,  in  the  age 
when  prophecy  was  a  living  power,  the  hard-and-fast 
rule  of  literal  interpretation  which  is  the  basis  of  so 
much  modern  speculation  about  the  prophetic  books 
was  not  recognised.  It  was  understood  that  the  pro- 
phets speak  in  broad  poetically  effective  images,  the 
essential  justice  of  which  is  not  affected  by  the  con- 
sideration that  they  are  not  exactly  reproduced  in  the 
future,  so   long   as   they  embody  true  principles  and 


LECT.  VI.  ASSYRIAN  ALLIANCE.  269 

indicate  riglit  points  of  view  for  the  direction  of  con- 
duct. In  the  case  before  ns  the  practical  object  of 
Isaiah  was  to  inspire  new  faith  where  all  trust  in  the 
God  of  Israel  seemed  to  be  paralysed  by  terror.  Ahaz 
had  refused  to  put  Jehovah  to  the  proof ;  the  oracles  of 
the  sanctuary  and  the  vulgar  herd  of  prophets  were 
silent.  Men  knew  no  better  counsel  than  to  turn,  as 
Saul  had  done  in  the  moment  of  his  despair,  to  the 
lowest  forms  of  divination,  to  the  peeping  and  mutter- 
ing wizards,  the  ventriloquists  who  pretended  to  raise 
the  shades  of  the  dead  that  they,  forsooth,  might  give 
lielp  to  the  living.  But  to  Isaiah  it  appeared  that 
Jehovah  had  never  been  more  clearly  manifested  as  the 
living  King  of  Israel.  In  the  days  of  false  prosperity 
it  could  be  said  with  truth  that  He  had  cast  off  His 
people  (ii.  6) ;  then  indeed  there  was  no  present  token 
of  the  sovereignty  of  the  holy  God  in  a  nation  where 
everything  that  was  inconsistent  with  His  rule  was 
suffered  to  run  its  course  unchecked.  But  now  the 
signs  of  Jehovah's  presence  and  personal  activity  were 
plain.  He  had  risen  to  shake  the  earth,  and  the  lethargy 
that  had  so  long  covered  the  circle  of  Palestinian  states 
was  dispelled.  On  all  sides  the  nations  were  astir, 
girding  themselves  for  battle,  knitting  secret  alliances, 
forging  plans  of  defence  against  the  approach  of  the 
Assyrian;  and  above  all  this  turmoil  Jehovah  sat 
supreme.  As  the  might  of  the  heathen  went  down 
before  the  irresistible  conqueror,  as  their  plans  were 
broken  and  their  proud  words  of  confidence  brought  to 


270  IMMANUEL : 


nought,  each  day  made  it  more  clear  that  there  was  no 
god  but  the  God  of  Israel.  The  religions  of  the  world 
were  on  their  trial,  and  the  verdict  is  pronounced  by 
Isaiah  in  the  words,  "With  iis  is  God"  (Isa.  viii.  10). 

What  is  the  evidence  on  which  Isaiah  bases  this 
verdict  ?  We  are  all,  I  suppose,  more  or  less  accustomed 
to  fancy  that  in  Bible  times  the  truths  of  religion 
were  brought  home  to  men's  minds  by  evidence  of  a 
more  tangible  kind  than  in  the  present  day.  The 
ordinary  method  of  dealing  with  the  historical  evidences 
of  Christianity  encourages  the  notion  that  the  most 
serious  difficulty  of  belief  lies  in  the  fact  that  we  are 
separated  by  so  many  centuries  from  the  time  when 
God  actually  proved  Himself  a  living  God  and  tlie  God 
of  salvation ;  and  we  fancy  that,  if  we  had  lived  in  the 
days  of  the  prophets  and  seen  with  our  own  eyes  the 
thinijs  that  Jehovah  wroudit  then,  it  would  have  been 
easy  to  believe,  or  rather  impossible  not  to  do  so,  be- 
cause the  supernatural  in  those  days  was  as  palpable  to 
the  senses  as  natural  phenomena  are  now.  An  examina- 
tion of  the  grounds  which  led  Isaiah  to  declare  that  God 
was  with  Israel  shows  how  erroneous  this  idea  is.  The 
events  that  gave  him  assurance  of  a  present  God  were 
the  same  events  that  filled  Ahaz  with  despair.  It  was 
indeed  abundantly  clear  that  the  gods  of  the  nations 
were  naught,  for  none  of  them  could  save  his  worshippers 
from  the  Assyrian.  But  where  was  the  proof  that  Israel 
was  in  a  better  case  ?  The  men  of  Judah  might  well 
say,  as  Gideon  had  said  in  the  days  of  Midianite  oppres- 


WITH  US  IS  god:'  271 


sion,  "If  Jehovah  be  with  us,  why  then  is  all  this 
befallen  us,  and  where  be  all  His  miracles  which  our 
fathers  told  us  of,  saying,  Did  not  Jehovah  bring  us  up 
from  Egypt  ?  but  now  Jehovah  hath  cast  us  off."  To 
the  spirit  that  will  not  believe  except  it  see  signs  and 
wonders  the  natural  inference  from  the  Assyrian  victory 
was  that  Asshur  and  not  Jehovah  was  the  God  who 
ruled  on  earth.  But  to  Isaiah  divine  rule  means  the 
rule  of  holiness.  Judgment  and  mercy  are  equally  valid 
proofs  of  the  sovereignty  of  Jehovah  in  Israel.  Where 
Amos  had  said,  Jehovah  knows  Israel  alone  of  all 
nations,  therefore  He  punishes  their  sins,  Isaiah  inverts 
the  argument  and  says.  Because  Jehovah  punishes  His 
people's  sins  there  is  verily  a  living  God  in  Israel. 
Ahaz  had  refused  to  ask  a  pledge  of  Jehovah's  interest 
in  His  people ;  but  Jehovah  Himself  supplies  that  pledge 
in  the  swift  approach  of  the  calamity  which  Ahaz's 
rebellion  entails. 

The  circumstance  that  Isa.  vii.  14  seq.  is  applied 
in  Mat.  i.  23  to  the  birth  of  our  Saviour  has  too  often 
served  to  divert  attention  from  the  plain  meaning  of  the 
sign  or  pledge  which  the  prophet  sets  before  the  men  of 
Judah.  It  is  perfectly  certain  that  the  New  Testament 
writers,  in  citing  passages  from  the  Old,  do  not  always 
confine  themselves  to  the  original  reference  of  the  words 
they  quote.  The  Old  Testament  Scriptures  were  an 
abiding  possession  of  the  Church.  Their  meaning  was 
not  held  to  have  been  exhausted  in  the  events  of  past 
history ;  tliey  all  pointed  to  Christ,  and  every  passage 


272  IMMANUEL : 


that  could  be  broiiglit  into  relation  with  the  Gospel 
history  might,  ifc  was  felt,  be  legitimately  adduced  in 
that  connection.  The  New  Testament  writers  therefore 
do  not  help  us  to  understand  what  a  text  of  Isaiah  meant 
to  the  prophet  himself,  or  to  those  whom  he  personally 
addressed.  They  tell  us  only  what  it  meant  to  the 
first  generation  of  Christianity.  The  discussion  of  this 
secondary  sense  lies  altogether  beyond  our  present  pur- 
pose. As  historical  students  of  prophecy,  we  have  only 
to  ask  what  the  prophet  designed  to  convey  to  his  own 
contemporaries  ;  and  to  them,  it  is  clear,  he  offered  a  pre- 
sent token  of  Jehovah's  presence,  and  of  the  truth  of  the 
prophetic  word  in  its  reference  to  current  events.  That 
token  was  not  a  miraculous  conception.  The  word  which 
the  English  version  renders  "virgin"  means,  strictly 
speaking,  nothing  else  than  a  young  woman  of  age  to  be 
a  mother.  On  the  person  of  the  future  mother  Isaiah 
lays  no  stress  ;  it  does  not  appear  that  he  pointed  his 
hearers  to  any  individual.  He  says  only  that  a  young 
woman  who  shall  become  a  mother  within  a  year  may 
name  her  child  ''  God  with  us."  For,  before  the  babe 
begins  to  develop  into  intelligent  childhood,  the  lands  of 
Pekah  and  Eezin  shall  be  laid  waste,  and  Judah  as  well 
as  Israel  shall  be  stripped  of  all  its  artificial  wealth,  and 
reduced  to  wild  pasture  ground,  whose  inhabitants  feed 
on  sour  milk  and  honey .^  In  the  collapse  of  all  human 
resources,  in  the  return  of  the  nation  to  that  elemental 
form  of  life  in  which  the  creations  of  human  skill  and 
industry  no  longer  come  between  man  and  his  Maker, 


LECT.  VI.  **  WITH  us  IS  god:'  273 

it  will  become  plain  that  there  is  a  God  in  Israel.  "  In 
that  day  man  shall  look  unto  his  Maker,  and  his  eyes 
shall  be  turned  to  the  Holy  One  of  Israel.  And  they 
shall  not  look  to  the  altars,  the  work  of  their  hands, 
neither  shall  they  turn  to  that  which  their  own  fingers 
have  made,  to  the  asJierim  and  the  sun-pillars  "  (xvii.  7, 
8).  To  put  the  thought  in  modern  language,  the  proof 
that  God  is  with  Israel,  and  with  Israel  alone,  lies  in 
this,  that  no  other  conception  of  godhead  than  that  of 
the  Holy  God  preached  by  Israel's  prophets  can  justify 
itself  as  consistent  with  the  course  of  the  Assyrian 
calamity.  The  world  is  divided  between  two  religions, 
the  religion  that  worships  things  of  man's  making,  and 
the  religion  of  the  Holy  One  of  Israel.  Judah  is  called 
to  choose  between  these  faiths,  and  its  rulers  have 
chosen  the  former.  Their  trust  is  in  earthly  things  ; — 
be  these  chariots  and  horses,  strong  cities  and  munitions 
of  war,  commercial  wealth  and  agricultural  prosperity, 
cariml  alliances  and  schemes  of  human  policy,  or  idols, 
altars,  and  sun -pillars,  is  alike  to  Isaiah's  argument. 
VVhen  Jehovah  rises  in  judgment  all  these  vain  helpers 
are  swept  away,  and  the  Holy  One  of  IsraeZ  alone 
remains.  The  plans  of  earthly  policy  which  Ahaz  and 
his  counsellors  had  matured  with  so  much  care  are 
likened  by  the  prophet  to  the  Adonis  gardens  ^^  or  pots  of 
quickly  withering  flowers,  which  the  ancients  used  to  set 
at  their  doors  or  in  the  courts  of  temples :  "  Because  thou 
hast  forgotten  the  God  of  thy  salvation,  and  hast  not 
been  mindful  of  the  rock  of  thy  strength,  therefore  tliou 

13 


274  THE  PROPHET  AND  lect.  vi. 

slialt  plant  Adonis  gardens,  and  set  them  with  strange 
slips.  In  the  day  that  thou  hedgest  in  thy  plants,  in  the 
morning  that  thou  makest  thy  seed  to  bud,  the  harvest 
is  vanished  in  a  day  of  grief  and  of  hopeless  sorrow  " 
(xvii,  10  seq^. 

Meantime,  the  duty  of  the  prophet  and  his  disciples 
is  to  hold  themselves  aloof  from  the  rest  of  the  nation, 
to  take  their  stand  on  the  sure  word  of  revelation,  and 
patiently  await  the  issue.  "  Jehovah  hath  laid  His  strong 
hand  on  me,  and  taught  me  not  to  walk  in  the  way  of 
this  people,  saying,  Speak  not  of  confederacy  where  this 
people  speaketh  of  confederacy,  and  fear  not  what  they 
fear,  neither  be  ye  afraid.  Sanctify  Jehovah  of  hosts 
Himself,  and  let  Him  be  your  fear,  and  let  Him  be  your 
dread.  And  He  shall  prove  a  sanctuary  [asylum],  but  a 
stone  of  stumbling,  and  a  rock  of  offence  to  both  the 
houses  of  Israel,  a  gin  and  a  snare  to  the  inhabitants  of 
Jerusalem."  "  Bind  up  God's  testimony,  seal  the  revela- 
tion among  my  disciples.  And  I  will  wait  for  Jehovah 
that  hideth  His  face  from  the  house  of  Jacob,  and  I 
will  look  for  Him"  (viii.  11  seq}).  The  circle  that 
gathered  round  Isaiah  and  his  household  in  these  evil 
days,  holding  themselves  apart  from  their  countrymen, 
treasuring  the  word  of  revelation,  and  waiting  for  Je- 
hovah, were  indeed,  as  Isaiah  describes  them,  "  signs  and 
tokens  in  Israel  from  Jehovah  of  hosts  that  dwelleth  in 
Mount  Zion."  The  formation  of  this  little  community 
was  a  new  thing  in  the  history  of  religion.  Till  then  no 
one  had  dreamed  of  a  fellowship  of  faith  dissociated 


LECT.  VI.  HIS  DISCIPLES.  275 

from  all  national  forms,  maintained  without  the  exercise 
of  ritual  services,  bound  together  by  faith  in  the  divine 
word  alone.  It  was  the  birth  of  a  new  era  in  tlie  Old 
Testament  religion,  for  it  was  the  birth  of  the  conception 
of  the  Church,  the  first  step  in  the  emancipation  of 
spiritual  religion  from  the  forms  of  political  life, — a  step 
not  less  significant  that  all  its  consequences  were  not 
seen  till  centuries  had  passed  away.  The  community 
of  true  religion  and  the  political  community  of  Israel 
had  never  before  been  separated  even  in  thought ;  now 
they  stood  side  by  side,  conscious  of  their  mutual  an- 
tagonism, and  never  again  fully  to  fall  back  into  their 
old  identity. 

Isaiah,  indeed,  and  the  prophets  who  followed  him 
were  still  far  from  seeing  how  deep  was  the  breach 
between  the  physical  Israel  and  the  spiritual  community 
of  faith.  To  them  the  dissociation  of  these  two  quali- 
ties appeared  to  be  merely  temporary  ;  they  pictured 
the  redemption  of  Israel  as  the  vindication  of  the 
true  remnant  in  a  day  of  national  repentance,  when  the 
state  should  accept  the  prophetic  word  as  its  divine 
rule.  For  the  order  of  salvation  is  first  light  and  then 
deliverance.  In  the  depth  of  Israel's  despair,  when  men 
walk  in  darkness,  hardly  bested  and  hungry,  "  they  shall 
curse  their  king  and  their  god,  and  look  upward " 
(viii.  21).  As  their  eyes  turn  to  Him  whom  they  cast 
off  for  the  things  they  now  curse  as  false  helpers,  the 
darkness  is  lifted  from  the  land.  "  She  who  is  in  an- 
guish shall  not  be  in  darkness."     The  work  of  redemp- 


276  THE  MESSIANIC  lect.  vi. 

tiou  begins  wliere  the  desolation  of  Israel  by  Assyria 
began,  in  the  northern  lands  of  Galilee  by  the  shores  of 
the  Lake  of  Tiberias  (ix.  1).  But  all  Israel  shares  the 
great  deliverance,  in  which  the  yoke  of  Assyria  is 
broken,  and  Jehovah's  zeal  for  His  people  manifested 
in  a  glorious  redintegration  of  the  Davidic  kingdom. 
"  The  people  that  walk  in  darkness  have  seen  a  great 
light :  they  that  dwell  in  the  land  of  deep  shade,  upon 
them  hath  the  light  shined.  Thou  hast  made  the  glad- 
ness great, -^^  Thou  hast  increased  their  joy ;  they  joy 
before  Thee  according  to  the  joy  in  harvest,  as  men 
are  glad  whsn  they  divide  the  spoil.  For  Thou  hast 
broken  the  yoke  of  his  burden,  the  rod  of  his  back,  the 
staff  of  his  oppressor,  as  in  the  day  of  [battle  with] 
Midian.  For  the  greaves  of  the  warrior  that  stampeth 
in  the  fray,  and  the  garments  rolled  in  blood,  shall  be 
cast  into  the  fire  as  fuel  for  the  flame.  For  to  us  a 
child  is  born,  unto  us  a  son  is  given ;  and  the  govern- 
ment shall  be  on  his  shoulder,  and  his  name  shall  be 
called  Wonderful  Counsellor— -God,  the  mighty  One — 
Everlastino"  Father — Prince  of  Peace,  for  the  increase 
of  the  government,  and  for  peace  without  end,  upon  the 
throne  of  David,  and  upon  his  kingdom  ;  to  confirm  it 
and  to  establish  it  in  judgment  and'  in  righteousness, 
from  henceforth  even  for  ever.  The  zeal  of  Jehovah  of 
hosts  will  perform  this  "  (ix.  2-7). 

In  these  words  the  picture  of  Israel's  final  glory 
assumes  a  much  preciser  form  than  in  the  earlier  pro- 
phecy of  chap.  iv.     There  is  still  a  large  element  of 


LECT.  VI.  DELIVERANCE.  211 

figure  and  symbol,  so  used  as  to  show  that  the  prophet 
does  not  possess  a  detailed  reveLation  of  the  process  of 
the  work  of  salvation,  but  is  guided,  as  was  the  case  in 
the  earlier  predictions,  by  general  principles  of  faith, 
too  large  to  be  immediately  translated  into  the  language 
of  literality.  But  he  has  now  gained  a  clearer  view  of 
the  nature  and  limits  of  the  work  of  judgment  than  was 
expressed  in  chaps,  ii.  and  iii.,  and  the  new  light  shed 
on  the  present  casts  its  rays  into  the  future.  The 
turning-point  of  Israel's  history  is  the  destruction  of 
the  power  of  the  Assyrian  oppressor,  and  with  this 
deliverance  the  Messianic  days  begin.  To  Isaiah, 
therefore,  the  law  of  Jehovah's  kingship  is  still  the 
same  as  in  ancient  days.  The  new  salvation  is  parallel 
to  the  great  things  which  God  did  for  His  people  in 
times  of  old,  when  the  victories  of  Israel  over  such 
enemies  as  Midian  were  recognised  as  victories  of 
Jehovah,  and  proved  the  chief  means  of  confirming  the 
national  faith.  But  now  the  deliverance  is  no  tem- 
porary victory  over  a  mere  Arab  horde,  but  the  final 
and  complete  discomfiture  of  the  great  power  which 
represented  all  that  man  could  do  against  the  kingdom 
of  Jehovah.  The  blood-stained  relics  of  the  struggle 
are  cast  into  the  fire.  War  has  ceased  for  ever,  and  the 
reign  of  perpetual  peace  begins  under  a  child  of  the 
seed  of  David,  whose  throne  is  established  in  righteous- 
ness and  for  evermore.  In  this  last  conception  we  meet 
for  the  first  time  with  the  idea  of  a  personal  Messiah. 
In  chap.  iv.  it  was  Jehovah's  glory,  manifested  in  fire  and 


278  THE  MESSIAH.  lect.  vi. 

cloud,  tliat  oversliadowed  and  protected  the  ransomed 
nation.  Now  this  image  is  translated  into  a  new  and 
more  concrete  form.  The  establishment  and  enlarf:^e- 
ment  of  the  divine  kingdom  is  committed  to  a  human 
representative  of  Jehovah's  sovereignty,  and  it  is  in 
a  fresh  scion  of  the  house  of  David  that  Israel  finds 
the  embodiment  of  more  than  human  wisdom,  divine 
strength,  and  an  everlasting  reign  of  fatherly  protection 
and  peace.  The  further  examination  of  these  Messianic 
ideas  must,  however,  be  deferred  till  we  can  compare 
the  prediction  now  before  us  with  the  later  prophecies 
in  Avhich  Isaiah  recurs  to  the  same  subject. 


THE  REIGN  OF  HEZEKIAH.  279 


LECTUEE    VII. 


ISAIAH  AND  MICAII  IN  THE  EEIGN  OF  HEZEKIAH.^ 


The  reign  of  Ahaz  was  not  a  very  long  one  ;  he  did  not 
live  to  see  the  revolt  of  Hoshea  and  the  fall  of  Samaria. 
The  last  rebellion  of  ISTorthern  Israel  was  not  an  isolated 
rising  ;  it  was  accompanied  or  followed  by  a  general 
revolt  of  all  the  Syrian  principalities  from  Philistia  in 
the  south  to  Hamath  and  Arpad  in  the  north.  Hoshea, 
as  we  know,  was  encouraged  by  the  hope  of  support 
from  So  (Sewe),  king  of  Egypt  (2  Kings  xvii.  4),  and 
this  monarch,  the  Sebech  of  the  Assyrian  monuments, 
was  in  fact  concerned  with  the  whole  movement  that 
threatened  the  Assyrian  supremacy  in  the  districts  west 
of  the  Euphrates.  The  interference  of  Egypt  at  this 
juncture  is  explained  by  the  fact  that,  for  some  time 
before,  that  country  had  been  much  divided  and  weak- 
ened by  contests  between  an  Ethiopian  dynasty  in  the 
upper  country  and  the  princes  of  the  Delta.  But  the 
Ethiopians  at  last  prevailed,  and  under  Sebech  Egypt 
and  Ethiopia  formed  a  single  power,  able  to  devote  itself 
to  foreign  affairs.  .  After  taking  Samaria,  Sargon  in 
B.C.  720  reduced  the  Philistine  cities,  and,  advancing  to 


280  CAMPAIGN  OF  lect.  vii. 

Rapliia  (now  Eafah)  on  the  border  of  the  desert  on  the 
short  caravan  road  from  Egypt  to  Gaza,  encountered  and 
defeated  Sebech.^  The  victory  was  not  pursued  into 
Egypt  itself,  but  it  secured  the  subjection  of  Syria,  and 
for  some  years  the  only  operations  of  Sargon  in  the  west 
of  which  we  hear  were  directed  against  Arab  tribes. 
But  in  B.C.  711,  nine  years  after  the  battle  of  Eaphia, 
Ashdod  was  once  more  in  revolt  under  a  king  named 
Yaman.  The  Egyptians  of  course  were  again  pulling 
the  strincjs,  and  the  affair  must  have  been  re^rarded  as 
serious,  for  Sargon  speaks  of  it  at  length  in  several  of 
his  inscriptions.  He  acted  with  great  promptitude, 
crossing  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  while  the  waters  were 
still  in  flood,  and  advancing  with  the  characteristic 
rapidity  which  forms  a  chief  feature  in  Isaiah's  descrip- 
tion of  the  Assyrian  armies  (Tsa.  v.)  "  In  the  anger 
of  my  heart,"  says  "  Sargon,  according  to  Oppert's 
translation  {B.P.  vii.  40 ;  ix.  11),  "  I  marched  against 
Ashdod  with  my  warriors,  who  did  not  leave  the  trace 
of  my  feet."  The  Egyptians  were  far  from  exhibiting 
equal  energy.  All  through  the  history  of  this  period 
their  policy  was  made  up  of  large  promises  and  small 
performance  ;  they  were  always  stirring  up  plots  against 
their  Eastern  rivals,  but  never  ready  when  the  moment 
for  action  came  ;  and  Isaiah  fitly  sums  up  their  conduct 
in  the  two  words  "  turbulence  and  inactivity  "  (xxx.  7). 
In  the  present  instance,  they  left  Ashdod  to  its  fate,  and 
Pharaoh  was  glad  to  make  his  peace  with  Sargon  by 
surrendering  Yaman,  who  had  taken  refuge  in  Egypt. 


LECT.  VII.        S ARGON  AGAINST  ASHDOD.  281 

This  campaign  has  a  special  interest  for  us,  because 
it  is  referred  to  in  the  first  prophecy  of  Isaiah  after  the 
Syro-Ephraitic  war,  the  date  of  which  is  altogether 
undisputed.  In  the  year  of  the  siege  and  capture  of 
Ashdod,  so  we  are  told  in  chap,  xx.,  Isaiah,  under 
Divine  command,  put  off  the  sackcloth  from  his  loins 
and  the  shoe  from  his  foot,  and  continued  for  three  years 
to  walk  naked  and  barefoot,  as  a  sign  and  token  upon 
Egypt  and  Ethiopia.  Even  so,  he  explained,  Egypt  and 
Ethiopia  shall  be  led  captive  by  the  king  of  Assyria, 
naked  and  barefoot,  to  the  shame  of  all  who  looked  to 
them  for  help.  .  "Then  the  inhabitants  of  this  coast 
shall  say.  So  have  they  fared  to  whom  we  looked  and 
to  whom  we  fled  for  help  to  be  delivered  from  the  king 
of  Assyria  ;  and  how  can  we  escape  ? "  The  only  point 
in  this  chapter  that  demands  explanation  is  the  three 
years'  continuance  of  the  prophet's  symbolic  action, 
which  plainly  implies  that  for  three  years  tlie  lesson 
still  required  to  be  enforced.  Here  the  annals  of  Sar- 
gon  come  to  our  help.  The  siege  of  Ashdod,  as  we 
have  seen,  fell  in  711,  and  for  the  next  two  years 
Sargon  was  wdiolly  engrossed  by  a  revolt  of  the  Baby- 
lonians under  Merodach  Baladan.  It  was  this,  perhaps, 
that  prevented  him  from  pressing  forward  against  Egypt 
as  Isaiah  had  expected  him  to  do  on  the  fall  of  Ashdod. 
At  all  events,  the  revolt  of  Babylon  gave  liopes  of 
independence  to  Assyria's  western  vassals,  for  we  are 
told  in  the  Annals  that  the  kings  of  Cyprus,  who  fiad 
previously  refused  tribute,  voluntarily  submitted  them- 


282  ISAIAH  IN  THE  lect.  vii. 

selves  when  they  heard  of  the  humiliation  of  Merodach 
Baladaii.  Cyprus,  the  Phoenicians,  and  the  Philistines 
were  closely  connected  in  trade  and  politics ;  so  it 
appears  that  in  the  third  year  of  Isaiah's  symbolical 
conduct  the  Palestinian  nations  gave  up  all  further 
hope  of  escape  from  the  Assyrian  yoke.  It  is  true  tliat 
tliis  result  had  not  come  about  in  the  way  that  Isaiah 
anticipated  ;  but  his  assurance  that  their  efforts  after 
independence  were  hopeless  had  none  the  less  justified 
itself,  and  there  was  no  further  motive  for  continuing 
the  sign  by  which  he  had  confirmed  it. 

Prom  this  date  to  the  death  of  Sargon  (B.C.  705) 
things  appear  to  have  remained  quiet  in  Palestine  ;  but 
before  we  pass  on  to  the  reign  of  Sennacherib,  we  are 
called  to  examine  more  closely  the  attitude  and  fortunes 
of  Judah  and  the  activity  of  the  prophets  during  the 
events  already  described.  In  the  wars  of  722-720 
against  Samaria  and  the  Philistines,  the  Judreans  seem 
to  have  had  no  direct  part ;  they  still  adhered  to 
Assyria,  as  w^as  natural  enough,  since  Philistia  and 
Ephraim  had  been  dangerous  enemies  but  a  few  years 
before.  To  this  date  Isa.  xxviii.  can  most  naturally  be 
assigned.  The  prophet  looks  forward  to  the  fall  of 
Samaria,  when  the  proud  crown  of  the  drunkards  of 
Ephraim  shall  be  trodden  under  foot,  and  the  glory  of 
Samaria  pass  as  a  fading  flower ;  and  still  he  sees  in 
the  near  catastrophe  but  a  fresh  pledge  of  the  approach 
of  the  day  when  Jehovah  shall  be  the  crown  and  pride 
of  the   remnant  of  His  people,  giving  **  the  spirit  of 


LECT.  VII.  REIGN  OF  SARGON.  283 

justice  to  him  wlio  sitteth  for  justice,  and  of  valour  to 
them  that  turn  back  battle  from  the  gate."  He  at  least 
has  not  lost'  faith  or  changed  his  hope  during  the  ten 
years  that  have  elapsed  since  he  withdrew  from  public 
life  with  his  disciples,  to  wait  for  better  days  ;  the  pur- 
pose of  Jehovah  has  been  deferred,  but  not  abandoned, 
and  in  the  new  crisis  Isaiah  sees  Him  rising  up  to 
accomplish  it  in  His  ancient  might,  as  that  w^as  dis- 
played at  Baal-Perazim  and  Gibeon  (2  Sam.  v.  20  scq^. ; 
Josh.  X.).  Thus,  in  spite  of  the  threatening  aspect  of 
the  present,  Jehovah's  purpose  appears  to  Isaiah  as  a 
purpose  of  grace  to  Israel — but  of  grace  that  can  only 
be  realised  by  those  who  are  willing  to  yield  obedience 
to  the  Divine  precepts.  The  condition  of  deliverance 
is  still  national  repentance,  and  from  this  the  rulers  of 
Judah  and  the  official  heads  of  Judah's  religion  (ver.  7) 
are  far  removed.  The  chiefs  of  the  people  are  like  men  in 
the  last  stage  of  a  drunken  debauch  (vers.  7,  8),  incapable 
of  listening  to  sane  counsel,  deaf  to  Jehovah's  words 
when  He  declares  to  them  by  His  prophet  where  rest  for 
the  weary  and  refreshing  for  the  exhausted  nation  are  to 
be  found  (ver.  12).  In  this  prophecy  Isaiah  does  not 
again  detail,  what  he  had  explained  at  length  before, 
the  course  in  which  these  blessings  are  to  be  found. 
But  throughout  life  he  pointed  steadily  to  the  establish- 
ment of  civil  justice  and  the  abolition  of  the  idols  as  the 
things  most  necessary,  and  we  may  safely  conclude  that 
in  these  respects  there  was  as  yet  no  real  amendment. 
The  "  scornful  men  "  who  guided  the  helm  of  the  state 


284  THE  PARABLE  OF  lect.  vii. 

were  absorbed  in  schemes  which  left  no  room  for  the 
thought  that  the  fate  of  kingdoms  is  governed  by 
Jehovah's  providence  and  by  the  supremacy  of  His 
lioly  will.  They  had  made  lies  their  refuge,  and  hid 
themselves  under  falsehood.  They  had  made  their 
covenant  with  death  and  Sheol — that  is,  with  the  fatal 
power  of  the  Assyrian — and  trusted  that  when  the ''  over- 
flowing scourge,"  the  all -destroying  invasion,  passed 
through  it  should  not  reach  them.  Isaiah  had  no  share 
in  this  illusion.  He  saw  that  the  present  state  of 
things  Avas  intolerable  and  could  not  last ;  "  the  bed 
was  too  short  for  a  man  to  stretch  himself  on  it,  the 
coverlet  too  narrow  for  a  man  to  wrap  himself  in  it " 
(ver.  20).  The  Assyrian  alliance  must  soon  be  dissolved. 
"  Your  covenant  with  death  shall  be  annulled,  your 
agreement  with  Sheol  shall  not  stand ;  when  the  over- 
flowing scourge  passeth  through,  ye  shall  be  trodden 
down  by  it."  Once  and  again  the  invading  host  shall 
pass  through  the  land  and  smite  its  inhabitants  (ver.  19). 
So  long  as  the  policy  of  irreligion  lasts,  it  can  only  serve 
to  prolong  the  bondage  of  the  nation  (ver.  22).  Jehovah's 
purpose  is  now  decisive  and  final  (ver.  22)  ;  the  mea- 
sure of  strict  justice  shall  be  applied  to  those  who  have 
mocked  at  judgment  and  righteousness  (ver.  17).  In 
the  universal  overthrow  there  is  but  one  thing  fixed  and 
immutable  :  "  Jehovah  hath  laid  in  Zion  a  stone,  a 
stone  of  proof,  a  precious  corner-stone  of  sure  founda- 
tion ;  he  that  believeth  shall  not  make  haste  "  (ver.  16). 
Those  who  have  faith  in  the  sovereign  providence  that 


LECT.  VII  THE  HUSBANDMAN.  285 

rules  in  Israel,  and  is  surely  working  out  Jehovah's 
counsel,  can  await  the  future  with  patience ;  they,  and 
they  alone,  for  "  hail  shall  sweep  away  the  refuge  of  lies, 
and  the  waters  shall  overflow  the  hiding-place."  It  is 
still  the  old  faith  in  the  inviolability  of  Zion,  the  pro- 
phetic confidence  in  the  continuity  of  Jehovah's  purpose, 
that  forms  the  root  of  Isaiah's  hope  ;  but  now  more 
clearly  than  before  the  prophet  lays  the  basis  of  this 
faith  in  the  doctrine  of  an  all-embracing  divine  ordi- 
nance, the  same  ordinance  that  rules  the  actions  of 
every-day  industry.  The  wisdom  that  tells  the  husband- 
man how  to  plough  and  sow,  which  directs  the  daily 
labours  of  agricultural  life,  is  also  a  part  of  Jehovah's 
teaching  (vers.  24-29).  And  the  same  God,  "  wonderful 
in  counsel  and  excellent  in  practical  wisdom,"  who 
prescribes  the  order  of  common  toil,  rules  in  the  affairs 
of  the  state  and  lays  down  the  inviolable  laws  of  Israel's 
happiness. 

The  argument  from  the  operations  of  husbandry 
Vv  ith  which  Isaiah  closes  this  prophecy  is  too  character- 
istic to  be  passed  over  without  further  remark.  To 
recognise  its  full  force  we  must  remember  that  all  such 
operations  were  guided  by  traditional  rules  which  no 
one  dreamed  of  violating.  These  rules  were  the 
law  of  the  husbandman,  and  like  all  traditional  laws 
among  ancient  nations  they  had  a  sacred  character. 
Every  one  understood  that  it  was  part  of  religion  to 
observe  them,  and  that  it  would  be  in  the  highest 
degree  unlucky  to  set  them  aside.    The  modern  mind  is 


286  THE  PEASANTS  lect.  vii. 

disposed  to  laugh  at  such  ideas,  but  Isaiah  takes  them 
in  all  seriousness.  In  the  sedulous  observance  of  the 
traditional  lore  which  expressed  the  whole  wisdom  of 
the  peasant,  and  was  reverently  accepted  as  a  divine 
teaching,  the  husbandman  brought  his  religion  into  the 
daily  duties  of  his  humble  toil,  and  every  operation  became 
an  act  of  obedience  to  God.  And  thus  his  life  appears 
to  the  prophet  as  a  pattern  for  the  scornful  rulers  of 
Judah.  They  too  in  their  seat  of  judgment  and  govern- 
ment have  a  divine  law  set  before  them,  in  the  observ- 
ance of  which  the  felicity  of  the  nation  lies.  But  they 
refuse  to  learn.  The  incessant  prophetic  inculcation  of 
"  command  upon  command,  rule  upon  rule,  here  a  little 
and  there  a  little" — in  brief,  the  attempt  to  make  the 
word  of  God  the  practical  guide  of  every  action — seems 
to  them  only  fit  for  babes  (ver.  9).  But  Jehovah  will 
not  suffer  His  lessons  to  remain  unlearned.  AVhat  they 
refuse  to  hear  at  the  mouth  of  the  prophet  they  must 
learn  from  the  harsher  accents  of  the  Assyrian  tyrant. 
''  With  barbarous  lips  and  in  a  strange  tongue  will  He 
speak  to  this  people"  (ver.  11).  Thus  the  doctrines  of 
divine  chastisement  and  divine  grace  are  gathered  up| 
into  one  larger  doctrine  of  Jehovah's  teaching  to  Israel. 
The  word  of  the  prophet  and  the  rod  of  the  Assyrian 
are  conjoint  agencies,  working  together  for  the  in-bring- 
ing of  a  time  when,  as  the  prophet  elsewhere  expresses; 
it,  the  land  shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  Jehovah, 
when  the  practical  rules  of  conduct  which  He  dictates 
shall  be  as  supreme  in  the  administration  of  the  state 


LECT.  VII.  AND  THE  PRINCES.  287 

as  in  the  ordering  of  the  daily  tasks  of  the  husband- 
man. 

The  way  in  which  the  rulers  of  Judah  are  addressed 
in  this  prophecy  appears  to  show  that,  in  spite  of  the 
increasing  sufferings  which  the  Assyrian  exactions 
imposed  on  the  poorer  classes — for  these  in  the  East 
are  the  taxpayers — the  princes  still  found  their  account 
in  the  maintenance  of  the  settlement  effected  by  Ahaz. 
Isaiah  does  not  blame  them  for  their  acquiescence  in  a 
position  of  political  nonentity  ;  he  certainly  would  not 
have  encouraged  them  to  cast  in  their  lot  with  Samaria  ; 
but  he  urges  that  the  sins  which  have  proved  the  ruin 
of  Samaria  will  be  their  ruin  too.  The  accession  of 
Hezekiah,  it  is  plain,  had  done  nothing  for  the  cure  of 
the  internal  wounds  of  the  state  ;  all  social  disorders 
were  as  rampant  as  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Syro-Ephraitic 
war  ;  the  Assyrian  suzerainty  was  tolerated  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  it  maintained  the  governing 
classes  in  their  positions,  and  enabled  them  to  continue 
their  course  of  riot  and  oppression.  This  picture  of  the 
state  of  Judah  receives  independent  confirmation  from 
the  earlier  part  of  the  book  of  Micah,^  which  also  dates 
from  the  days  of  the  last  struggle  of  Samaria,  as  we 
learn  from  a  comparison  of  IMicah  i.  with  Jer.  xxvi.  18. 
Micah  was  a  man  of  Moresheth  Gath,  a  small  place,  as 
Jerome  tells  us,  near  Eleutheropolis  on  the  Philistine 
frontier,  and  the  proximity  of  his  home  to  one  part  of 
the  field  of  war  helps  to  explain  his  keen  interest  in  the 
progress  of  the  Assyrian  arms.    At  all  events,  the  crisis 


288  MICAH  OF  lect.  vii. 

which  drew  Isaiah  from  his  retirement  to  proclaim  to 
Judah  the  lesson  preached  by  the  impending  ruin  of 
Ephraim,  called  forth  the  countryman  Micah  to  give  a 
like  warning.  In  the  storm  that  was  ready  to  burst 
upon  Samaria  he  beheld  Jehovah  going  forth  from  His 
heavenly  palace,  and  marching  over  tlie  mountains  of 
Palestine  in  righteous  indignation  to  visit  the  sins  of 
Jacob.  Samaria  shall  become  a  heap  of  the  field ;  the 
stones  of  her  fortifications  shall  be  rolled  down  into  the 
valley,  her  graven  images  dashed  to  pieces.  But  Judah 
too  has  shared  the  sin  of  Samaria,  and  the  same  judg- 
ment menaces  Zion  (i.  1-9).  It  is  the  cities  of  his  own 
district  that  are  in  immediate  danger  (i.  10-15) — a 
natural  thought,  since  they  lay  next  to  the  scene  of  war 
in  Philistia;  but  the  centre  of  Judah's  sin  is  the  capital ; 
and  the  evil  that  has  come  down  from  Jehovah  already 
stands  at  the  gate  of  Jerusalem  (i.  5,  9,  12).  The  sins 
which  Micah  has  in  view  are  the  same  as  those  sii^nalised 

o 

by  Isaiah  :  on  the  one  hand,  a  religion  full  of  idolatry 
and  heathenish  sorceries  (iii.  7 ;  v.  12  scq}),  a  spurious 
confidence  in  Jehovah,  which  has  no  reo'ard  to  His 
moral  attributes,  and  is  bolstered  up  by  lying  oracles 
(ii.  11;  iii.  5, 11,  comp.  Isa.  xxviii.  7),  while  it  refuses  to 
hear  the  warnings  of  true  prophecy  (ii.  6;  iii.  8,  comp.  Isa. 
xxviii.  9  scc[) ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  gross  corruption 
and  oppressions  of  the  ruling  classes,  who  "build  up 
Zion  with  bloodshed,  and  Jerusalem  with  iniquity" 
(iii.  10).  But  Micah  depicts  the  sufferings  of  the 
peasantry  at  the  hands  of  their  lords  from  mnch  closer 


LECT.  VII.  MORESHETH  GATH.  289 


personal  observation  than  was  possible  to  Isaiah  as  a 
resident  in  the  capital.  He  speaks  as  a  man  of  tlie 
people,  and  reveals  to  us,  as  no  other  prophet  does,  the 
feelings  of  the  commonalty  towards  their  oppressors.  To 
the  peasantry  the  nobles  seem  to  have  no  object  but 
plunder  (ii.  1  scq^.  The  poorer  agriculturists  are  daily 
stripped  of  their  houses  and  holdings  by  violence  or 
false  judgment.  The  true  enemies  of  the  people  are 
their  own  rulers  (ii.  8),^  and  the  prophet  contemplates 
with  a  stern  satisfaction,  which  doubtless  found  an  echo 
in  many  breasts,  the  approach  of  the  destroyer  who 
shall  carry  into  exile  "the  luxurious  sons"  (i.  16)  of 
this  race  of  petty  tyrants,  and  leave  them  none  "  to 
stretch  the  measuring  line  on  a  lot  in  the  congregation 
of  Jehovah  "  (ii.  5).  "  Arise,"  he  cries,  "  and  depart,  for 
this  is  not  your  place  of  rest." 

The  strong  personal  feeling  which  Micah  displays 
towards  the  governing  classes  gives  a  peculiar  turn  to 
his  whole  prophecy.  Isaiah  speaks  as  severely  of  the 
sins  of  the  nobles,  but  never,  as  Micah  does,  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  man  of  the  people.  Isaiah's  own  circle 
belonged  to  the  upper  classes ;  the  chief  priest  of  the 
temple  was  his  friend  ;  and  an  aristocratic  liabit  of 
thought  appears  in  more  than  one  of  his  prophecies. 
His  doctrine  of  the  indestructibility  of  Zion  as  the 
condition  of  the  continuity  of  the  national  existence  of 
Judah  seems  to  indicate  that  the  capital  and  the  Court 
appeared  to  him  as  the  natural  centre  of  the  true 
remnant.     There  is  nothing  democratic  in  his  picture  of 


290  THE  PROPHECY  lect.  vii. 

Israel's  restoration  ;  lie  looks  for  the  amendment  of  the 
ruling  classes  (i.  26),  who  retain  their  old  place  in  the 
reconstruction  of  the  state  (chap,  xxxii.).  Micah,  on 
the  contrary,  conceives  the  work  of  judgment  essentially 
as  a  destruction  of  the  government  and  the  nobles.  The 
race  of  the  unjust  aristocrats  sliall  be  rooted  out  of  the 
land  (ii.  5)  ;  the  proud  and  guilty  capital  shall  be 
ploughed  as  a  field  ;  Jerusalem  shall  become  as  heaps 
and  the  mountain  of  the  temple  as  the  heights  of  the 
forest  (iii.  12) ;  the  judge  or  king  of  Israel  shall  suffer 
tlie  last  indignities  at  the  hand  of  the  enemy  (v.  1 ; 
//(?&.,  iv.  14).  It  has  often  been  supposed  from  these 
predictions  that  Micah,  unlike  Isaiah,  looked  forward  to 
a  total  captivity ;  and  tliat  his  words  were  referred  by 
the  Jew^s  themselves  to  the  Babylonian  exile,  appears 
from  the  fact  that  at  an  early  date  the  gloss,  "  and  shalt 
come  even  to  Babylon,"  w^as  inserted  in  iv.  10.^  But  a 
closer  examination  does  not  bear  out  this  view.  When 
the  aristocrats  are  carried  captive  "  the  congregation  of 
Jehovah  "  remains  in  the  land  (ii.  5).  The  glory  of  Israel 
is  not  banished  from  Canaan,  but  takes  refuge  in  Adul- 
1am,  as  in  the  old  days,  when  a  band  of  freebooters  and 
broken  men  contained  the  true  hope  of  the  nation  (i.  15). 
The  days  of  David,  wdien  the  ruler  of  Israel  came  forth 
from  Bethlehem,  a  town  too  small  to  be  reckoned  as  a 
canton  in  Judah  (v.  2),  the  times  of  "  the  first  kingdom," 
when  Jerusalem  itself  w\as  but  a  hill  fort,  "  a  tower  of 
the  flock "  (iv.  8),  appear  to  Micah  as  the  true  model 
of  national  well-being  ;  the  acquisitions  of  later  civilisa- 


LECT.  VII.  OF  MIC  AH  L-V.  291 

tion  and  political  development,  horses  and  chariots  and 
fenced  cities — always  associated  with  tyranny  in  the 
minds  of  the  common  people — are  stamped  by  him  as 
sins,  and  shall  be  utterly  abolished  in  the  days  of 
restoration  (i.  13  ;  v.  10,  11).^  Hence,  though  Micali  no 
less  than  Isaiah  recognises  Zion  as  the  centre  of  Je- 
hovah's sovereignty,  from  which  divine  instruction  and 
decisions  shall  go  forth  in  the  days  to  come  to  all  the 
surrounding  nations,  who  shall  lay  aside  their  weapons 
of  war  and  make  Jehovah  the  arbiter  of  their  strifes 
(iv.  1  8ec[),  the  fall  of  the  Zion  of  the  present,  the  city 
built  up  by  bloodshed  and  guilt,  the  strong  fortress  of 
Israel's  oppressors,  appears  to  our  prophet  as  a  necessary 
step  in  the  redemption  of  the  nation.  The  daughter  (or 
population)  of  Zion  must  pass  through  the  pangs  of 
labour  before  her  true  king  is  born ;  she  must  come 
forth  from  the  city  and  dwell  in  the  open  field  ;  there, 
and  not  within  her  proud  ramparts,  Jehovah  will  grant 
her  deliverance  from  her  enemies.  For  a  time  the  land 
shall  be  given  up  to  the  foe,  but  only  for  a  time.  Once 
more,  as  in  the  days  of  David,  guerilla  bands  gather 
together  to  avenge  the  wa^ongs  of  their  nation  (v.  1).  A 
new  David  comes  forth  from  little  Bethlehem,  and  the 
rest  of  his  brethren  return  to  the  children  of  Israel — 
that  is,  the  kindred  Hebrew  nations  again  accept  the 
sway  of  the  new  king,  who  stands  and  feeds  his  flock  in 
the  strength  of  Jehovah,  in  the  majesty  of  the  name  of 
Jehovah  his  God.  Then  Assyria  shall  no  longer  insult 
Jehovah's  land  with  impunity.      The  national  militia, 


292  MIC  AH  AND  THE  lect.  vii. 

again  numerous  and  warlike  as  of  old,  lias  no  lack  of 
captains  to  meet  the  invader,  and  the  tide  of  battle  shall 
be  rolled  back  into  the  land  of  Nimrod,  which  the  sword 
of  Israel  shall  lay  waste.  The  remnant  of  Judah  shall 
flourish  in  the  midst  of  the  surrounding  peoples,  like 
grass  fertilised  by  the  waters  of  heaven,  that  tarry  not 
for  man  nor  wait  for  the  sons  of  men.  Judah  shall  be 
among  the  nations  irresistible  as  a  lion  among  flocks  of 
sheep  ;  for  its  strength  comes  down  from  Jehovah,  like 
dew  from  the  skies,  and  all  false  helpers,  strongholds 
and  chariots,  enchantments  and  graven  images,  aslierim 
and  7naggc'botJi,  are  swept  away.  And  Jehovah  will 
execute  judgment  in  wrath  and  fury  on  the  nations  that 
refuse  obedience  (v.  2-15). 

It  is  interestin!:^  to  observe  that  accordinfij  to  Jer. 
xxvi.  19  the  prophecy  of  Micah  produced  a  great 
impression  on  his  contemporaries.  And  this  is  not 
strange  ;  for  he  spoke  to  the  masses  of  the  people  as 
one  of  themselves,  and  his  whole  picture  of  judgment 
and  deliverance  was  constructed  of  familiar  elements, 
and  appealed  to  the  most  cherished  traditions  of  the 
past.  David,  as  it  is  easy  to  recognise  from  the 
narrative  of  the  books  of  Samuel,  was  the  hero  of  the 
common  people ;  and  no  more  effective  method  of 
popular  teaching  could  have  been  devised  than  the 
presentation  of  the  antique  simplicity  of  his  kingdom 
in  contrast  to  the  corruptions  of  the  present.  Thus 
Micah's  teaching  went  straighter  to  the  liearts  of  the 
masses  than  the  doctrine  of  Isaiah,  which  at  this  time 


LECT.  vir.  DA  VIDIC  KING.  293 

was  still  working  only  as  a  leaven  in  a  small  circle. 
Isaiah's  work,  in  truth,  was  the  higher  as  it  was  the  more 
difficult ;  it  was  a  greater  task  to  consolidate  the  party 
of  spiritual  faith,  and  by  slow  degrees  to  establish  its 
influence  in  the  governing  circle,  than  to  arouse  the 
masses  to  a  sense  of  the  incongruity  of  the  present  state 
of  things  witli  the  old  ideal  of  Jehovali's  nation.  But 
both  prophets  liad  their  share  in  the  great  transforma- 
tion of  Israel's  religion  which  began  in  the  reign  of 
Hezekiah  and  found  definite  expression  in  the  reforma- 
tion of  Josiah.  It  is  Micah's  conception  of  the  Davidic 
king  which  is  reproduced  in  the  Deuteronomic  law  of 
the  kingdom  (Deut.  xvii.  14  scq),  and  his  prophecy  of 
the  destruction  of  the  high  places  (v.  13),  more  directly 
than  anything  in  Isaiah's  book,  underlies  the  principle 
of  the  one  sanctuary,  the  establishment  of  wliich,  in 
Deuteronomy,  and  by  Josiah,  was  the  chief  visible  mark 
of  the  relictions  revolution  Avhich  the  teachim?  of  the 
prophets  had  effected. 

These  remarks,  however,  threaten  to  carry  us  too 
far  out  of  the  course  of  the  history  which  we  are  pursu- 
ing. Let  us  return  to  Judah  and  its  rulers  as  they 
were  on  the  eve  of  Samaria's  calamity,  when  Micah  was 
preaching  the  fall  of  the  corrupt  nobles,  and  Isaiah  was 
appealing  to  the  grandees  of  the  capital  to  be  warned 
by  the  fate  of  their  compeers  in  Samaria.  At  the  time, 
we  may  well  suppose,  the  words  of  ]\Iicah  found  no 
audience  beyond  his  own  district,  and  the  prophecy  of 
Isaiah   xxviii.  was  little  heeded,  so  that,  if  we  may 


294  THE  REIGN  lect.  vii. 

judge  from  the  present  arrangement  of  his  book,  he 
deemed  it  fitting  to  republish  it  many  years  later  as  a 
seasonable  introduction  to  a  collection  of  prophecies  Ox 
the  time  of  Sennacherib.  But  the  events  that  followed 
proved  that  Isaiah's  foresight  was  sound.  The  sum  of 
his  warning  had  been,  "  Be  ye  not  mockers,  lest  your 
fetters  be  made  strong."  Judah  refused  his  admonition, 
and  the  Assyrian  bondage  became  every  year  more 
grievous.  The  tone  of  cha^:).  xx.  makes  it  hardly 
questionable  that  ten  years  later,  in  711  B.C.,  the 
Judseans  took  a  lively  and  favourable  interest  in  the 
uprising  of  Philistia,  which,  by  its  close  connection 
with  Egypt  on  the  one  hand  and  Phoenicia  on  the 
other,  as  well  as  by  the  physical  advantages  of  its  posi- 
tion in  the  rich  Mediterranean  coast-land,  was  marked 
out  as  the  natural  focus  of  Palestinian  revolt.  The 
pressure  of  the  foreign  yoke  caused  ancestral  enmities 
to  be  forgotten,  and  Judah  leaned  more  and  more  to  the 
scheme  of  an  Egyptian  alliance  embracing  all  the 
Syrian  states.  Sargon  himself,  on  a  cylinder  which 
repeats  the  main  facts  of  the  war  of  711,  already 
described  from  his  Annals,  tells  us  that  the  tributary 
states  of  Judah,  Edom,  and  Moab,  w^ere  speaking 
treason  and  beseeching  the  alliance  of  Egypt,  and  many 
recent  inquirers  have  supposed  that  at  this  time  Heze- 
kiah  and  his  j)eople  broke  out  into  open  revolt,  and 
shared  the  miseries  of  the  war  that  ensued.  This  con- 
jecture has  considerable  interest  for  the  interpretation 
of  Isaiah's  prophecies.     The  prophet  was  not  an  ordinary 


LECT.  VII.  OF  SARGON.  295 

preacher;  liis  voice  was  mainly  heard  in  great  political 
crises,  and  in  uneventful  times  he  might  well  be  silent 
for  years.  But  in  the  day  of  danger,  when  Jehovah 
was  pre-eminently  at  work,  the  fundamental  law  of 
prophecy  came  into  play :  "  The  Lord  Jehovah  doeth 
nothing,  without  revealing  his  secret  to  his  servants 
the  prophets."  If  Judah  was  actively  engaged  in  the 
war  of  711,  and  was  reduced  by  force,  it  is  scarcely  doubt- 
ful that  the  book  of  Isaiah  must  preserve  some  record 
of  the  fact ;  and  so  the  latest  English  commentator, 
Mr.  Cheyne,  developing  the  suggestions  of  Professor 
Sayce  and  other  Assyriologists,  pro230ses  to  ascribe  to 
this  period,  not  only  chaps,  x.  5  to  xi.  16,  but  chaps,  i., 
xiv.  29-32,  xxii.,  xxix.-xxxii.  If  we  accept  this  view 
we  must  conclude  that  Judah  had  a  very  large  share  in 
the  campaign  of  711,  that  the  whole  land  was  overrun 
by  the  enemy  and  the  provincial  cities  taken  and 
burned  (i.  7),  that  Jerusalem  itself  was  besieged  (xxii.) 
— in  short,  that  Judah  suffered  precisely  in  the  same 
way  and  to  the  same  extent  as  under  the  invasion  of 
Sennacherib  ten  years  later.  But,  more  than  this,  we 
must  conclude  that  Isaiah  held  precisely  similar  lan- 
guage in  the  two  cases, — that  under  Sargon,  as  under 
Sennacherib,  he  taught  that  the  Assyrian  might  indeed 
approach  and  lay  siege  to  Jerusalem,  but  Jehovah  in 
the  last  extremity  would  Himself  protect  His  holy 
mountain  and  strike  down  the  invader,  and  that  he 
did  this  in  the  second  invasion  without  making  any 
reference  back  to  the  events  of  the  siege  which  had  called 
forth  similar  predictions  ten  years  before. 


296  PROPHECIES  OF  THE  lect.  vii. 

The  mere  statement  of  this  hypothesis  is,  I  think,  suffi- 
cient to  show  its  extreme  improbability.  History  does 
not  repeat  itself  exactly,  and  even  if  the  two  invasions 
of  the  hypothesis  ran  a  similar  course,  as  up  to  a  certain 
point  they  might  Vv^ell  do,  they  must  have  had  very 
different  issues.  If  Jerusalem  was  besieged  in  711  the 
issue  certainly  was  the  submission  of  Hezekiah  and  his 
return  to  obedience.  And  if  this  were  so,  it  is  highly 
improbable  that  he  would  have  been  allowed  to  restore 
the  Juda3an  fortresses,  and  regain  so  large  a  measure  of 
military  strength  as  is  implied  in  the  fact  that  ten 
years  later  he  was  the  most  important  member  of  the 
rebel  confederation.  On  the  contrary,  the  fact  that  the 
campaign  of  711  was  essentially  a  campaign  against 
Ashdod,  Judsea  not  being  so  much  as  named  in  the 
account  of  it  in  the  Annals,  while  that  of  701  was  as 
essentially  a  campaign  against  Judsea,  in  which  the 
Philistines  played  quite  a  subordinate  part,  seems  to  be 
clear  evidence  that,  though  Hezekiah  may  for  a  moment 
have  thought  of  revolt  on  the  earlier  occasion,  he  did 
not  take  an  active  part  in  the  war.  The  extraordinary 
rapidity  of  Sargon's  movements,  specially  emphasised 
on  the  monuments,  enabled  him  to  crush  Ashdod  before 
the  Egyptians  could  send  aid  to  their  allies,  and  no 
doubt  nipped  in  the  bud  all  schemes  of  revolt  on  the 
part  of  the  neighbouring  states.  That  this  was  the 
actual  course  of  events  is  further  clear  from  Isa.  xx. 
The  language  of  the  prophet  must  have  been  very 
different   if  at    this   time   Judah   had    been   actively 


LECT.  VII.  REIGN  OF  SARGON.  297 

engaged  on  the  side  of  Ashdod.  And  finally,  it  can 
hardly  be  supposed  that  the  book  of  Kings  would  have 
been  altogether  silent  on  the  subject,  if  Sargon  as  well 
as  Sennacherib  had  besieged  Jerusalem  and  captured 
tlie  cities  of  Judah.  But  the  attempt  of  the  Assyrio- 
logists  to  find  in  2  Kings  xviii.  13  seq^.  some  trace  of  an 
earlier  invasion  which  has  got  mixed  up  with  that  of 
Sennacherib  is  altogether  chimerical.  Everything  in  the 
narrative  of  Kings  is  either  borne  out  by  the  monuments 
of  Sennacherib,  or  is  altogether  inapplicable  to  the 
expedition  of  Sargon.  Sennacherib  tells  only  of  his 
successes,  not  of  his  ultimate  retreat  and  the  escape  of 
Hezekiah,  and  so  his  account  corresponds  only  with  2 
Kings  xviii.  13-1 7a.  But  everything  spoken  of  in  these 
verses  agrees  exactly  with  the  Assyrian  record.^ 

If  we  are  compelled  to  reject  the  theory  of  an  in- 
vasion of  Judsea  under  Sargon,  the  only  prophecy  in 
Mr.  Cheyne's  list  which  can  be  held  to  be  earlier  than 
the  reign  of  Sennacherib  appears  to  be  that  extending 
from  X.  5  to  xi.  16,  which  sets  forth  with  greater  com- 
pleteness than  any  other  single  discourse  preserved  to 
us  the  whole  views  of  Isaiah  concerning  the  mission  of 
Assyria  as  an  instrument  of  Jehovah's  anger,  the 
ultimate  fate  of  the  robber  empire,  and  the  future  glory 
of  Jehovah's  people.  The  destruction  of  Samaria,  the 
final  captivity  of  Northern  Israel — which  the  prophet 
does  not  seem  to  have  contemplated  in  the  discourses 
of  the  reign  of  Ahaz — and  the  thorough  subjugation  of 
all  Syria  and  Northern  Palestine,  which  were  stripped 

14 


298  THE  PROPHECY  lect.  vii. 

by  Sargon  of  the  last  shadow  of  independence,  were 
events  that  could  not  fail  to  produce  a  deep  impression 
in  Judah ;  and,  while  others  stood  aghast  at  the  terrible 
portent  which  had  changed  the  whole  face  of  the 
Hebrew  world,  Isaiah — who  had  not  lost  confidence  in 
the  ultimate  victory  of  Jehovah's  cause,  or  ceased  to 
associate  that  victory  with  the  preservation  through  all 
trouble  of  the  visible  kingdom  of  Jehovah  in  Israel, 
which  had  its  centre  on  Mount  Zion — could  hardly  fail 
to  feel  it  necessary  to  restate  his  view  of  the  future  of 
Judah  in  a  form  that  took  account  of  recent  events. 
The  great  prophecy  of  chaps,  x.  and  xi.  corresponds  to 
this  description.  The  cardinal  thoughts  are  the  same 
as  in  chap,  xxviii. ;  ^  but  the  date  is  after  the  fall  of 
Samaria,  the  destruction  of  the  principalities  of  Syria, 
such  as  Hamath  and  Arpad,  which  we  know  to  have 
taken  place  at  the  same  time  with  the  final  subjugation 
of  Ephraini,  is  alluded  to  as  a  recent  event  (x.  9),  and 
the  immediate  historical  background  of  the  prophecy  is 
the  total  revolution  which  the  successes  of  Assyria  and 
the  policy  of  captivities  en  masse  (x.  13)  had  worked  in 
all  the  countries  between  Jud?ea  and  the  Euphrates. 
It  is  difficult  for  us  to  conceive  the  terror  which  these 
events  must  have  inspired  among  the  petty  nations  of 
I'alestine,  who  for  centuries  past  had  gone  on  their  way, 
each  walking  in  the  name  of  its  god  (Micah  iv.  5),  and 
fancying  itself  secure  in  his  help  from  any  greater 
danger  than  was  involved  in  the  usual  feuds  with  its 
neighbours.     To  Isaiah,  however,  the  progress   of  the 


LECT.  VII.  OF  ISAIAH  X.  XI.  299 

Assyrian  had  no  terrors  and  brought  no  surprise.  There 
was  neither  strength  nor  permanency  in  the  idolatrous 
kingdoms,  which  one  after  another  had  fallen  before  the 
all-conquering  power.  So  far  as  they  were  concerned, 
Assyria  was  irresistible  ;  its  mission  upon  earth,  con- 
fided to  it  by  Jehovah  Himself,  was  to  prove  that  there 
was  no  God  but  the  Holy  One  of  Israel.  But  Jehovah's 
kingdom  and  Jehovah's  citadel  of  Zion  stood  in  a  very 
different  position.  The  Assyrian  in  liis  greatest  might 
is  but  the  rod  of  Jehovah's  anger  ;  and  though  he  knows 
not  this,  but  deems  that  the  strength  of  his  own  hand 
has  gotten  him  the  victory,  and  that  he  can  deal  with 
Jerusalem  and  her  idols  at  his  will  as  he  has  done  with 
Samaria  and  her  idols,  it  is  as  impossible  for  him  to  lift 
himself  up  against  Jehovah  as  for  the  axe  to  boast 
itself  against  him  that  heweth  therewith,  or  for  the  rod 
to  shake  the  hand  that  wields  it.  It  is  indeed  plain 
that  the  pride  of  the  Assyrian  will  not  acknowledge  this 
limitation  of  his  might,  and  that  his  all-devouring  greed 
will  soon  carry  him  onw^ards  to  open  assault  on  Judah, 
which  as  yet  is  itself  unconscious  of  its  high  destiny, 
still  "leaning  on  him  who  smites  it" — that  is,  as  appeared 
in  chap,  xxviii.,  still  depending  on  that  treaty  of  tri- 
butary alliance  which,  Isaiah  saw,  could  not  be  long 
observed.  But  when  the  crisis  comes,  when  Jehovah 
has  accomplished  His  whole  work  on  IMount  Zion  and 
on  Jerusalem,  He  will  punish  the  proud  heart  and  stout 
looks  of  the  king  of  Assyria,  and  it  shall  be  seen  that 
the  conqueror  who  has  removed  the  bounds  of  nations 


300  THE  PROPHECY  lect.  vii. 

and  gathered  all  the  earth  as  a  man  gathers  eggs  from 
a  deserted  nest,  where  there  is  none  that  moves  a  wing 
or  opens  the  mouth  or  peeps,  is  powerless  before  the 
walls  of  Jehovah's  citadel.  Thus,  as  King  Sargon  con- 
tinued his  career  of  universal  conquest,  the  history  of 
the  world  appeared  to  Isaiah  to  converge  towards  one 
great  decision,  when  all  other  nations  should  have  dis- 
appeared from  the  struggle,  and  the  supreme  world- 
power  should  come  face  to  face  with  the  God  who  has 
founded  Zion  as  His  inexpugnable  sanctuary.  This 
thought  shaped  itself  to  the  prophet's  mind  in  the 
picture  of  a  great  invasion,  in  which  the  Assyrian 
advances  through  the  pass  of  Michmash,  in  the  fulness 
of  his  arrogancy  and  might,  sweeping  the  helpless 
inhabitants  before  him  till  he  stands  upon  the  broad 
ridge  of  Scopus  looking  down  upon  Jerusalem  from  the 
north,  and  shakes  his  hand  in  contemptuous  menace  at 
the  mount  of  the  daughter  of  Zion.  Then  Jehovah 
arises  in  His  might  and  prostrates  the  proud  host,  as 
a  mighty  forest  falls  before  the  axe  of  the  woodman. 
Compare  xiv.  24-27. 

The  fall  of  the  Assyrian  closes  the  first  act  of  the 
divine  drama  as  it  unfolds  itself  before  the  spiritual 
eyes  of  the  prophet,  and  this  great  deliverance  seals  the 
repentance  of  Jehovah's  people.  "In  that  day  the 
remnant  of  Israel  and  the  survivors  of  the  house  of 
Jacob  shall  no  more  again  stay  upon  him  that  smote 
them ;  but  shall  stay  upon  Jehovah  the  Holy  One  of 
Israel  in  truth"  (x.  20).     The  judgment  is  past,  and 


LECT.  VII.  OF  ISAIAH  X.  XL  301 

days  of  blessing  begin.  The  Davidic  kingdom  starts 
into  new  life,  or,  as  the  prophet  expresses  it,  a  new 
sapling  springs  from  the  old  stock  of  Jesse,  on  whom 
the  spirit  of  Jehovah  rests  in  full  measure,  as  a  spirit 
of  wisdom,  heroism,  and  true  religion,  who  rules  in  the 
fear  of  Jehovah,  his  loins  girt  about  with  righteousness 
and  faithfulness,  doing  justice  to  the  poor  without 
respect  of  persons,  and  consuming  the  evildoers  out  of 
the  land  by  the  sovereign  sentence  of  his  lips,  till  crime 
and  violence  are  no  longer  known  in  Jehovah's  holy 
mountain,  and  the  land  of  Israel  is  full  of  the  knowledge 
of  Jehovah  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea.  !N"o  figure  is 
too  strong  to  paint  this  reign  of  peace  and  order.  The 
wolf  shall  dwell  with  the  lamb,  and  the  leopard  shall 
lie  down  with  the  kid,  and  the  sucking  child  shall  play 
on  the  hole  of  the  asp.  It  would  be  puerile  to  take 
these  expressions  literally,  and  the  prophet  himself 
interprets  his  figure  when  he  represents  the  abolition  of 
all  hurt  and  harm  as  the  fruit  of  just  judgment  and 
pure  government. 

The  blessings  of  this  Messianic  time  belong,  in  the 
first  instance,  to  Israel  alone ;  the  other  nations  share 
in  them  only  in  so  far  as  they  seek  arbitration  and 
guidance  from  the  kingly  house  of  Jesse,  which  stands 
forth  as  a  beacon  to  the  surrounding  peoples.  But  the 
restoration  of  Israel  is  complete.  Jehovah  will  gather 
back  the  remnant  of  His  people,  scattered  in  Egypt  and 
Assyria  and  all  the  four  corners  of  the  earth,  opening  a 
way  before  the  returning  exiles  by  drying  up  seas  and 


302  MESSIANIC  lect.  vii. 

rivers,  as  in  the  day  when  Israel  came  up  out  of  Egypt. 
Judah  and  Ephraim  shall  no  more  be  foes,  and  their 
united  armies  shall  restore  the  ancient  conquests  of 
David.  On  the  west  they  shall  swoop  down  victoriously 
on  Philistia ;  to  the  east  they  shall  spoil  the  children  of 
the  desert ;  and  Edom,  Ammon,  and  Moab  shall  return 
to  their  old  obedience. 

The  connection  of  ideas  in  this  prophecy  is  so  clear, 
and  it  sets  forth  with  so  much  completeness  Isaiah's 
whole  view  of  Jehovah's  purpose  towards  Judah,  that 
we  may  regard  it  as  a  typical  example  of  what  is  usually 
called  Messianic  prediction.  The  name  Messiah  is 
never  used  in  the  Old  Testament  in  that  special  sense 
which  we  are  accustomed  to  associate  with  it.  The 
Messiah  (with  the  article  and  no  other  word  in  apposi- 
tion) is  not  an  Old  Testament  phrase  at  all,  and  the 
word  Messiah  (Mashi%)  or  "anointed  one'^  in  the 
connection  "  Jehovah's  anointed  one  "  is  no  theological 
term,  but  an  ordinary  title  of  the  human  king  whom 
Jehovah  has  set  over  Israel.  Thus  the  usual  way  in 
which  the  time  of  Israel's  redemption  and  final  glory  is 
called  the  Messianic  time  is  incorrect  and  misleading. 
So  long  as  the  Hebrew  kingdom  lasted,  every  king  was 
"  Jehovah's  anointed,"  and  it  was  only  after  the  Jews 
lost  their  independence  that  the  future  restoration  could 
be  spoken  of  in  contrast  to  the  present  as  the  days  of 
the  Messiah.  To  Isaiah  the  restoration  of  Israel  is  not 
the  commencement  but  the  continuation  of  that  personal 
sovereignty  of  Jehovah  over  His  people  of  which  the 


LECT.  VII.  PROPHECY.  303 

Davidic  king  was  the  recognised  representative.  As  the 
holy  seed  which  repeoples  the  land  after  the  work  of  judg- 
ment is  done  is  a  fresh  growth  from  the  ancient  stock 
of  the  nation  (vi.  13),  so  too  the  new  Davidic  kingship 
is  a  fresh  ovitgrovvth  of  the  old  stem  of  Jesse.  We  are 
apt  to  think  of  the  days  of  the  Messiah  as  an  altogether 
new  and  miraculous  dispensation.  That  was  not  Isaiah's 
view.  The  restoration  of  Jerusalem  is  a  return  to  an 
old  state  of  things,  interrupted  by  national  sin.  *'  I  will 
restore  thy  judges  as  at  the  first,  and  thy  councillors  as 
at  the  beginning  ;  afterward  thou  shalt  be  called  the  city 
of  righteousness,  the  faithful  city  "  (i.  26).  And  so  when 
we  examine  the  picture  presented  in  chap.  xi.  with  care, 
and  make  allowance  for  traits  so  plainly  figurative  as 
the  lion  which  eats  straw  like  the  ox,  the  seas  and  rivers 
dried  up  to  facilitate  the  return  of  the  exiles  of  Judah, 
we  find  but  one  fundamental  difference  between  the  old 
and  the  new  Israel :  the  land  shall  be  full  of  the  know- 
ledge of  Jehovah,  and  shall  enjoy  the  happiness  which 
in  all  ages,  past  as  well  as  future,  has  accompanied 
obedience  to  the  laws  of  its  Divine  King.  And  this 
obedience  again  is  not  taken  in  a  N"ew  Testament  sense, 
as  if  it  rested  on  a  new  birth  in  every  heart.  Obedience 
to  Jehovah  as  a  King  is  not  the  affair  of  the  individual 
conscience,  but  of  the  nation  in  its  national  organisa- 
tion ;  the  righteousness  of  Israel  which  Isaiah  con- 
templates is  such  righteousness  as  is  secured  by  a 
perfectly  wise  and  firm  application  of  the  laws  of  civil 
justice  and   equity.     It  is   this  which  gives  so  much 


304  THE  KING  OF  lect.  vii. 

importance  to  the  person  of  the  future  king.  It  is  the 
exercise  of  his  functions  that  abolishes  crime  and 
violence,  and  makes  the  land  which  he  governs  worthy 
to  be  called  Jehovah's  holy  mountain.  Thus  the 
cardinal  point  in  the  prophecy  is  the  equipment  of  the 
Davidic  king  for  the  perfect  exercise  of  his  task  by  the 
spirit  of  Jehovah  which  rests  upon  him.  But  even 
here  the  prophet  does  not  bring  in  any  absolutely  novel 
element,  marking  off  the  future  felicity  of  Israel  as  a 
new  dispensation.  That  good  and  strong  government 
was  the  fruit  of  Jehovah's  spirit  poured  upon  the 
king  of  Israel  was  the  ancient  faith  of  the  Hebrews. 
So  we  read  that  a  divine  spirit,  or  the  spirit  of 
Jehovah,  descended  first  on  Saul  and  afterwards  on 
David  at  their  respective  anointings  (1  Sam.  x.  6,  10 ; 
xvi.  13,  14),  as  in  earlier  times  the  same  spirit  came 
upon  the  judges  of  Israel  and  strengthened  them  for 
their  deeds  of  heroism  (Judges  iii.  10  ;  vi.  34  ;  xi.  29). 
Isaiah  himself  does  not  confine  this  operation  of  the 
spirit  to  the  king  of  the  future.  In  the  day  of  deliverance 
Jehovah  shall  be  for  a  spirit  of  judgment  to  him  that 
sits  for  judgment,  and  of  might  to  them  that  turn  back 
the  battle  in  the  gate  (xxviii.  6).  All  power  to  do 
right  and  noble  deeds  is  Jehovah's  gift,  and  the  opera- 
tions of  His  spirit  are  everywhere  seen  where  men  do 
great  things  in  the  strength  of  true  faith.  And  so  the 
indwelling  of  this  spirit  in  the  Davidic  king  does  not 
constitute  an  absolutely  new  departure  in  the  kingship, 
or  offer  anything  inconsistent  with  the  conception  that 


LECT.  vn.  THE  FUTURE.  305 

Jeliovah  will  restore  the  judges  of  Jerusalem  as  they 
were  in  the  beginning.  The  new  thing  is  the  complete- 
ness with  which  this  divine  equipment  is  bestowed,  so 
that  the  king's  whole  delight  is  set  on  the  fear  of 
Jehovah,  and  his  rule  is  wise  and  just,  without  error  or 
defect  of  any  kind. 

But  does  not  such  an  indwelling  of  the  divine 
spirit,  it  may  be  asked,  imply  that  the  new  king 
must  be  more  than  human  ?  Does  not  Isaiah  him- 
self regard  his  rule  as  eternal,  and  bestow  upon  him 
in  ix.  6  names  that  imply  that  he  is  God  as  well  as 
man  ?  In  looking  at  this  question,  we  must  not  allow 
ourselves  to  be  influenced  by  the  fuller  light  of  the 
Christian  dispensation  which  we  possess,  but  which 
Isaiah  had  not.  To  us  it  is  clear  that  the  ideal  of  a 
kingdom  of  God  upon  earth  could  not  be  fully  realised 
under  the  forms  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  dispensa- 
tion of  tlie  New  Testament  is  not  a  mere  renewal  of  the 
days  of  David  in  more  perfect  form.  The  kingdom  of 
God  means  now  something  very  different  from  a  restora- 
tion of  the  realm  of  Judah,  and  a  resubjugation  of 
Philistia  and  Edom,  Amnion  and  Moab,  under  a  sove- 
reign reigning  visibly  on  Zion  ;  and  its  establishment  on 
earth  was  not,  and  could  not  be,  the  fruit  of  any  such 
outward  event  as  tlie  destruction  of  the  Assyrian 
monarchy.  The  very  fact  that  Isaiah  did  not  foresee 
this,  that  it  was  still  possible  for  him  immediately  to 
connect  the  glory  of  the  latter  days  with  the  fall  of 
Assyria,  and  to  speak  of  it  as  a  restoration  of  the  peace, 


306  THE  KING  OF  lect.  vii. 

the  independence,  the  political  supremacy  of  the  land 
of  Judah,  is  enough  to  show  that  the  lineaments  of 
his  future  king  are  not  yet  identical  with  the  image  of 
the  New  Testament  Christ.  The  question,  then,  which 
we  have  to  consider  is  whether  Isaiah  looked  forward 
to  a  time  when  an  immortal  God-man  should  sit  on  the 
earthly  Zion  and  use  his  divine  strength  and  wisdom  to 
make  the  Hebrew  race  happy  and  victorious  over  their 
neighbours.  And  to  this  question  I  think  the  answer 
must  be  in  the  negative.  We  believe  in  a  divine  and 
eternal  Saviour,  because  the  work  of  salvation,  as  we 
understand  it  in  the  light  of  the  New  Testament,  is 
essentially  different  from  the  work  of  the  wisest  and 
best  earthly  king.  Isaiah's  ideal  is  only  the  perfect 
performance  of  the  ordinary  duties  of  monarchy :  for  this 
end  he  sees  a  king  to  be  required  who  reigns  in  Jehovah's 
name,  and  in  the  strength  of  His  Spirit,  but  there  is  no 
proof  and  no  likelihood  that  he  thought  of  more  than 
this.  It  is  by  no  means  clear  that  he  looks  for  an  ever- 
lasting reign  of  one  king,  or  indeed  that  he  ever  put  to 
himself  the  question  whether  the  new  offshoot  from  the 
root  of  Jesse  is  to  be  one  person  or  a  race  of  sovereigns. 
It  is  the  function  and  equipment  of  the  kingship,  not 
the  person  of  the  king,  that  absorbs  all  his  attention. 
And  though  the  names  of  the  child  who  is  to  be  born  to 
Israel  wonderfully  foreshadow  New  Testament  ideas, 
there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  they  denote  anything 
metaphysical.  The  king  of  Israel  reigns  in  Jehovah's 
name.     In  him  Jehovah's  rule  becomes  visible  in  Israel, 


THE  FUTURE.  307 


and  his  great  fourfold  name  speaks  ratlier  of  the  divine 
attributes  that  shine  forth  in  his  sovereignty,  than  of 
the  transcendency  of  a  person  that  is  God  as  well  as 
man.  The  prophet  does  not  say  that  the  king  is  the 
mighty  God  and  the  everlasting  Father,  but  that  his 
name  is  divine  and  eternal,  that  is,  that  the  divine 
might  and  everlasting  fatherhood  of  Jehovah  are  dis- 
played in  his  rule.^  That  the  person  of  the  Messiah 
has  not  that  foremost  place  in  Isaiah's  theology  which 
has  often  been  supposed  appears  most  clearly  from  the 
fact  that  in  his  later  utterances  he  ceases  to  speak  of 
the  rise  of  a  new  king.  In  the  prophecies  of  the  time 
of  the  war  with  Sennacherib  he  says  only  that  the 
king  shall  reign  for  righteousness  and  princes  rule  for 
justice,  that  the  churl  shall  no  more  be  called  princely, 
and  the  man  of  guiles  a  gracious  lord.  The  right  men 
shall  be  at  the  head  of  the  state,  and  their  authority 
shall  bring  protection  and  refreshing  to  the  distressed 
(xxxii.  1  se^.) ;  Jerusalem's  princes  and  judges  shall  be 
such  as  they  were  in  the  good  old  days  (i.  26).  So 
long  as  the  throne  was  filled  by  a  king  like  Ahaz,  or 
while  his  successor  was  still  in  the  hands  of  a  corrupt 
nobility,  the  contrast  of  the  present  and  future  kingship 
was  a  point  to  be  specially  emphasised  ;  but  when  there 
was  promise  of  better  days,  when  a  vizier  like  Shebna 
had  to  give  way  to  a  man  whom  Isaiah  esteemed  so 
highly  as  Eliakim  (xxii.  15  scq),  and  the  king  himself 
began  to  rule  on  sounder  principles,  the  sharpness  of 
this  contrast  disappeared,  and  the  prophet  spoke  rather 


308  ISAIAH'S 


of  the  glorious  Jehovali  Himself,  who,  above  and  through 
the  earthly  sovereign,  was  the  true  Judge,  Lawgiver, 
King,  and  Saviour  of  Israel. 

To  realise  what  Isaiah  looked  to  when  he  described 
a  state  of  things  in  which  the  land  of  Israel  should  be 
full  of  true  religion,  or,  as  he  expresses  it,  of  practical 
knowledge  of  Jehovah,  it  is  well  to  remember  how  in 
chap,  xxviii.  he  presents  the  daily  toil  of  the  husband- 
man as  itself  regulated  by  divine  revelation.  The 
Hebrew  state  consisted  essentially  of  two  classes,  the 
peasants  and  the  governors  or  nobles.  Husbandry  on 
the  one  side,  good  government  and  justice  on  the  other, 
are  the  twin  pillars  of  the  state,  and  for  prince  and 
peasant  alike  the  knowledge  of  Jehovah  means  the 
knowledge  of  the  duties  of  his  vocation  as  sacred  rules 
enforced  by  divine  sanction  and  blessed  by  divine  grace. 
Well-ordered  and  peaceful  industry  on  the  one  hand, 
strict  and  impartial  justice  on  the  other,  are  the  marks 
by  which  it  is  known  that  Jehovah's  law  is  supreme  in 
Israel ;  and  He  Himself  crowns  such  obedience  by 
blessing  the  fruits  of  the  land,  by  giving  unfailing 
direction  in  every  time  of  need,  and  protecting  the 
righteous  nation  from  every  enemy.  Compare  xxx. 
18  seq. 

Such  is  Isaiah's  conception  of  the  ideal  of  the  in- 
ternal order  of  the  state,  and  his  view  of  the  foreign 
relations  of  Israel  is  not  less  plain  and  practical.  It 
contains,  as  we  have  seen,  two  elements,  the  subjugation 
of  the  vassal  nations  which  in  old  days  did  homage  to 


LECT.  VII.  IDEAL.  309 

David,  and  the  establishment  of  a  kind  of  informal 
headship  over  more  distant  tribes  who  seek  arbitra- 
tion and  direction  from  Jerusalem.  The  first  of  these 
elements  is  easy  to  understand.  The  new  kingdom 
cannot  fall  short  of  the  glories  of  David's  reign,  and 
Amos  had  already  predicted  that,  in  the  last  days,  the 
house  of  Israel  should  possess  the  remnant  of  Edom 
and  all  the  nations  that  in  doing  homage  to  Israel  had 
acknowledged  the  sovereignty  of  Jehovah.  Less  than 
this,  indeed,  could  not  be  regarded  as  sufficient  to 
establish  the  peace  and  security  of  the  Hebrews,  who 
in  every  generation  had  been  harassed  by  the  enmity 
of  Philistia  and  Edom,  of  Ammonites  and  Moabites. 
The  other  element  in  like  manner  contains  no  new 
thought.  It  is  expressed  in  a  passage  which  is  now 
read  in  the  books  both  of  Isaiah  and  Micah  (Isa.  ii.  2 
scq^. ;  Micah  iv.  2),  and  which,  if  it  has  a  right  to  stand 
in  both  places,  and  has  not  rather  been  transferred  from 
Micah  to  the  text  of  Isaiah,  must  be  a  quotation  from 
an  older  prophet.  For  Isaiah  ii.  was  written  long  be- 
fore Micah  i.-v. ;  and  Micah,  on  the  other  hand,  is  cer- 
tainly not  quoting  Isaiah.^^  But,  in  truth,  the  thought 
that  when  justice  and  mercy  rule  on  the  throne  of 
David  foreign  nations  shall  willingly  bring  their  feuds 
before  it  for  arbitration  is  expressed  in  the  old  pro- 
phecy, Isa.  xvi.  {siqwct,  p.  92).  This  is  far  from  imply- 
ing a  world-wide  sovereignty  of  Israel ;  tlie  thought 
covers  no  more  than  that  kind  of  influence  which  a  just 
and  strong  government  always  obtains  among  Semitic 


310  ISAIAH'S  LECT.  VII. 

populations  in  its  neighbourhood,  which  we  ourselves, 
for  example,  exercise  at  the  present  day  among  the 
Arabs  in  the  vicinity  of  Aden.  The  interminable  feuds 
of  tribes,  conducted  on  the  theory  of  blood-revenge, 
which  makes  no  conclusive  peace  possible  while  either 
side  has  an  outstanding  score  against  the  other,  can 
seldom  be  durably  healed  without  the  intervention  of  a 
third  party  who  is  called  in  as  arbiter,  and  in  this  w^ay 
an  impartial  and  wise  power  acquires  of  necessity  a 
great  and  beneficent  influence  over  all  around  it.  Such 
an  influence  Israel  must  obtain  when  the  knowledge  and 
fear  of  Jehovah  are  established  in  the  midst  of  the  land. 
And  now,  in  conclusion,  the  practical  simplicity 
and  apparently  restricted  scope  of  Isaiah's  ideal  must 
not  cause  us  to  undervalue  the  pure  and  lofty  faith  on 
which  it  rests.  A  too  prevalent  way  of  thinking,  which 
is  certainly  not  Biblical,  but  which  leavens  almost  the 
whole  life  of  modern  times,  has  accustomed  us  to 
regard  religion  as  a  thing  by  itself,  which  ought  indeed 
to  influence  daily  life,  but  nevertheless  occupies  a 
separate  place  in  our  hearts  and  actions.  To  us  the 
exercises  of  religion  belong  to  a  different  region  from 
the  avocations  of  daily  life  ;  God  seems  to  us  to  stand 
outside  and  above  the  world,  which  has  laws  and  an 
order  of  its  own,  in  which  it  costs  us  a  distinct  effort  to 
recognise  the  evidence  of  a  personal  providence.  When 
we  are  dealing  with  the  w^orld  we  seem  to  have  turned 
our  backs  upon  God,  and  when  we  look  to  Him  in  the 
proper  exercises  of  religion  we  strive  to  leave  the  world 


LECT.  VII.  IDEAL.  311 

behind  us.      Hence  our  whole   thoughts   of  God  are 
dominated  by  the  contrast  of  the  natural  and  the  super- 
natural ;  the  miracles  by  which  God  approves  Himself 
as  God  seem  to  us  to  have  evidential  force  only  in  so 
far  as  they  break  through  the  laws  of  nature.     To  us, 
therefore,  the  ideal  of  an  existence  in  full  converse  with 
God  is  apt  to  present  itself  as  that  of  a  new  w^orld  in 
which  everything  is  supernatural,  a  heaven  in  which 
the  tasks  of  common  life  have  no  more  place,  and  the 
natural  limitations  of  earthly  being  have  disappeared.,^^    *^ 
The  time  when  faith  shall  have  passed  into  sight  seems     '^'t*^ 
to  us  to  be  necessarily  a  time  in  which  everything  is  ;^-u,^  ^. 
miraculous,  in  which  life  is  a  dream  of  the  fruition  of  c..,. 
God.     To  such  a  habit  of  thought  the  ideal  of  Isaiah     ,     3^ 
is  necessarily  disappointing,  and  that  not  so  much  on  ''^'\f 
account  of  the  unquestionable  imperfection  of  the  Old 
Testament  standpoint  which  considers  the  Divine  King- 
ship only  in  reference  to   the  nation  of  Israel,  as  on 
account  of  the  realism  which  represents  the  state  of  per- 
fected religion  as  consistent   with  the  continuance  of 
earthly  conditions  and  the  common  order  of  actual  life. 
But  in  reality  it   is  just   this  realism   which   is   the 
greatest  triumph  of  Isaiah's  faith.     For  him  that  con- 
trast of  the  natural  and  supernatural  which  narrows  all 
the  religion  of  the  present  has  no  existence.     He  know^s 
nothing  of  laws  of  nature,  of  an  order  of  the  w^orld 
which  can  be  separated  even  in  thought  from  the  con- 
stant personal  activity  of  Jehovah.     The  natural  life  of 
Israel  is  already,  if  I  may  use  terms  which  the  prophet 


312  ISAIAH'S  VIEW  OF  lect.  vii. 

would  have  refused  to  recognise,  as  thoroughly  pene- 
trated by  the  supernatural  as  any  heavenly  state  can 
be.  It  is  not  in  the  future  alone  that  the  Holy  One  of 
Israel  is  to  become  a  living  member  in  the  daily  life  of 
His  people.  To  him  who  has  eyes  to  see  and  ears  to 
hear  the  presence  and  voice  of  Jehovah  are  already 
manifested  with  absolute  and  unmistakable  clearness. 
It  requires  no  argument  to  rise  from  nature  to  nature's 
God ;  the  workings  of  Jehovah  are  as  palpable  as  those 
of  an  ordinary  man.  In  the  time  of  future  glory  His 
presence  cannot  become  more  actual  than  it  is  now ;  it 
is  only  the  eyes  and  ears  of  Israel  that  require  to  be 
opened  to  see  and  hear  what  to  the  prophet  is  even  now 
a  present  reality. 

With  all  its  faults,  the  old  popular  religion  of  Israel 
had  one  great  excellence  :  it  made  religion  an  insepar- 
able part  of  common  life.  The  Hebrew  saw  God's 
hand  and  acknowledged  His  presence  in  his  sowing 
and  his  reaping,  in  his  sorrows  and  his  joys.  The  rules 
of  husbandry  were  Jehovah's  teaching,  the  harvest 
gladness  was  Jehovah's  feast,  the  thunderstorm  Jeho- 
vah's voice.  It  was  the  armies  of  Jehovah  that  went 
forth  to  battle,  the  spirit  of  Jehovah  that  inspired  the 
king,  the  oracle  of  Jehovah  that  gave  forth  law  and 
judgment.  This  simple  faith  was  obscured  and  threat- 
ened with  utter  extinction  by  the  intrusion  into  the 
life  of  the  nation  of  new  and  heterogeneous  elements, 
by  the  gradual  dissolution  of  the  ancient  balance  of 
society,  and  above  all  by  the  advent  of  the  Assyrian, 


LECT.  VII.  THE  SUPERNATURAL.  313 

who  swept  away  in  the  tide  of  conquest  the  whole 
traditional  life  of  the  conquered  nations.  Then  it  was 
that  the  prophets  arose  to  preach  a  kingdom  of  Jehovah 
supreme  even  in  the  crash  of  nations  and  the  dissolution 
of  the  whole  fabric  of  society.  But  the  very  cardinal 
point  of  their  faith,  which  alone  gave  it  value  and 
power,  was  the  doctrine  that  the  God  who  reigned  in 
the  storm  that  raged  round  Israel  was  no  new  deity,  but 
the  ancient  God  of  Jacob  ;  the  kingdom  of  the  future 
was  one  with  the  kingdom  of  the  past,  and  the  task  of 
that  divine  grace  in  which  they  never  ceased  to  trust 
was  not  to  set  a  new  religion  in  the  place  of  the  old, 
but  to  re-establish  the  ancient  harmony  of  religion  and 
daily  experience,  and  make  common  life  as  full  of 
Jehovah's  presence  as  it  had  been  in  times  gone  by. 
To  this  end  a  work  of  judgment  must  sweep  away  all 
that  comes  between  man  and  his  Maker.  The  sins  of 
Israel  are  the  things  that  hide  Jehovah  from  its  eyes, 
and  from  this  point  of  view  idols  and  idolatrous  sanc- 
tuaries stand  on  one  line  with  wealth  and  luxury, 
fortresses  and  chariots,  everything  that  can  hold  man's 
heart  and  prevent  it  from  turning  in  every  concern 
directly  to  the  Holy  One  of  Israel.  To  the  prophet  all 
these  things  are  emptiness  and  vanity.  The  one  thing 
real  on  earth  is  the  work  of  Jehovah  in  relation  to  His 
people.  To  Isaiah,  therifore,  the  supernatural  is  not 
something  added  to  and  differing  from  the  common 
course  of  things.  Everything  real  is  supernatural,  and 
supernatural  in  the  same  degree.     Where  we  contrast 


314  ISAIAH'S  VIEW  OF  lect.  vii. 

the  supernatural  and  the  natural,  Isaiah  contrasts 
Jehovah  and  the  things  of  nought.  To  him  the  fall  of 
Assyria  by  the  stroke  of  the  Holy  One  of  Israel  is  just 
as  supernatural  and  just  as  natural  as  the  previous 
conquests  of  the  Great  King  ;  he  sees  the  hand  of  Jeho- 
vah working  alike  in  both,  and  both  exemplify  the 
same  principle  of  the  absolute  sovereignty  of  the  King 
who  reigns  in  Zion.  From  our  point  of  view  the  picture 
drawn  in  chaps,  x.  and  xi.  is  apt  to  seem  a  strange 
mixture  of  the  most  surprising  miracle  and  the  most 
prosaic  matter  of  fact.  The  Assyrian  falls  by  no  human 
sword,  and  presently  the  men  of  Judah  are  engaged  in 
the  petty  conquest  of  Philistia  or  Edom.  Or  again,  in 
chap.  XXX.,  the  light  of  the  Holy  One  of  Israel  flashes 
forth  from  Zion,  Jehovah  causes  His  glorious  voice  to 
be  heard  and  scatters  His  enemies  with  flame  of  a  de- 
vouring fire,  with  crashing  storm  and  hail ;  and  when 
the  tempest  is  past  we  see  the  cattle  feeding  in  large 
pastures,  the  oxen  and  the  asses  that  plough  the  ground 
eating  savoury  provender  winnowed  with  the  shovel 
and  the  fork.  But  to  Isaiah  the  miracles  of  history 
and  the  providences  of  common  life  bring  Jehovah 
alike  near  to  faith.  His  religion  is  the  religion  of  the 
God  without  whose  will  not  even  a  sparrow  can  fall 
upon  the  ground,  the  God  whose  greatness  lies  in  His 
equal  sovereignty  in  things  small  and  vast. 

The  first  requisite  to  a  better  understanding  of  the 
i-eligion  of  the  Bible  is  that  we  should  learn  to  enter 
with  simplicity  into  this  point  of  view,  and  to  this  end 


LECT.  VII.  THE  SUPERNATURAL.  315 

we  must  remember  above  all  things  that  the  Bible 
knows  nothing  of  that  narrow  definition  of  miracle 
which  we  have  inherited  from  mediaeval  metaphysics. 
When  Isaiah  draws  a  distinction  between  Jehovah's 
wonders  and  the  things  of  daily  life  he  thinks  of  some- 
thing quite  different  from  what  we  call  miracle.  "  For- 
asmuch as  this  people  draw  near  Me  with  their  mouth, 
and  with  their  lips  do  honour  Me,  but  have  removed 
their  heart  far  from  Me,  and  their  fear  towards  Me  is  a 
precept  of  men  learned  by  rote  :  therefore  behold  I 
will  proceed  to  do  a  marvellous  work  among  this  people, 
even  a  marvellous  work  and  a  miracle,  and  the  wisdom 
of  their  wise  men  shall  perish,  and  the  understanding 
of  their  prudent  men  shall  be  hid  "  (xxix.  13,  14).  A 
marvel  or  miracle  is  a  work  of  Jehovah  directed  to 
confound  the  religion  of  formalism,  to  teach  men  that 
Jehovah's  rule  is  a  real  thing  and  not  a  traditional 
convention  to  be  acknowledged  in  formulas  learned  by 
rote.  And  the  mark  of  such  a  work  is  not  that  it 
breaks  through  laws  of  nature — a  conception  which  had 
no  existence  for  Isaiah — but  that  all  man's  wisdom  and 
foresight  stand  abaslied  before  it.  The  whole  career  of 
Assyria  is  part  of  the  marvel  that  confounds  the  hypo- 
crisy and  formalism  of  Judah ;  even  as  the  prophet 
speaks  the  work  is  already  begun  and  proceeding  to  its 
completion.  And  therefore  it  was  of  no  moment  to 
Isaiah's  faith  whether  his  picture  of  the  sudden  down- 
fall of  the  enemy  before  the  gates  of  Jerusalem  was 
fulfilled,  as  we  say,  literally.     The  point  of  his  prophecy 


316  MIRACLE,  lect.  vii. 

was  not  that  the  deliverance  of  Judah  should  take  place 
in  any  one  way,  or  with  those  dramatic  circumstances 
of  the  so-called  supernatural  which  a  vulgar  faith 
demands  as  the  proof  that  God  is  at  work.  In  truth 
the  crisis  came,  as  we  shall  see  in  next  Lecture,  in  a 
form  far  less  visibly  startling  than  is  pictured  in  chap. 
X.  ;  but  it  was  none  the  less  true  that  Jehovah  so 
worked  His  supreme  will  that  man's  wisdom  was  con- 
founded before  it,  that  it  was  made  manifest  to  the  eyes 
of  Israel  that  Jehovah  reigns  supreme  and  that  there 
is  no  help  or  salvation  save  in  Him.  And  in  this  sense 
the  age  of  miracle  is  not  past.  All  history  is  full  of 
like  proofs  of  divine  sovereignty  and  divine  grace,  when 
in  ways  incalculable,  and  through  combinations  that 
mocked  the  foresight  and  policy  of  human  counsellors, 
God's  cause  has  been  proved  indestructible,  and  the 
faith  in  a  very  present  God  and  Saviour  which  Isaiah 
preached  has  come  forth  in  new  life  from  the  wreck  of 
societies  in  which  religion  had  become  a  mere  tradition 
of  men. 


LECT.  VIII.  DEATH  OF  SARGON,  317 


LECTUEE  VIII. 

THE  DELIVERANCE  FROM  ASSYRIA^ 

Between  the  Syro-Epliraitic  war  and  the  accession  of 
Sennacherib  to  the  throne  of  Nineveh  the  power  of 
Assyria  had  been  steadily  on  the  increase.  The  energy 
and  talent  of  Sargon,  devoted  to  the  consolidation  rather 
than  the  unlimited  extension  of  his  empire,  effectually 
put  down  every  movement  of  independence  on  the  part 
of  subjects  and  tributaries,  and  even  the  united  realm 
of  Egypt  and  Ethiopia  no  longer  ventured  to  measure 
its  strength  with  his.  The  nations  groaned  under  a 
tyranny  that  knew  no  pity,  but  they  had  learned  by 
repeated  experience  that  revolt  was  hopeless  while  the 
reins  of  empire  were  held  by  so  firm  a  hand.  At  length, 
in  the  year  705,  Sargon  died,  and  the  crown  passed  to 
his  son,  Sennacherib.  A  thrill  of  joy  ran  through  the 
nations  at  the  fall  of  the  great  oppressor  (Isa.  xiv.  29). 
In  a  few  months  Babylon  was  in  full  revolt,  the  Assy- 
rian vassal  king  was  overthrown,  Merodach  Baladan — 
either  the  old  adversary  of  Sargon,  or  a  son  of  the  same 
name — assumed  the  sovereignty,  and  for  two  years 
(704-3),  according  to  the  canon  of  Ptolemy,  the  Assyrian 


318  EMBASSY  OF  lect.  viii. 

kingship  in  Chaldsea  was  interrupted.  The  rebel  king 
sought  alliances  far  and  wide  ;  the  monuments  tell  us 
that  he  found  support  in  Elam  (the  region  to  the  east 
of  the  lower  Tigris,  now  part  of  Khuzistan),  among  the 
Aramceans  of  Mesopotamia,  and  among  the  Arab  tribes, 
and  that  two  campaigns  were  occupied  in  reducing  the 
revolt  in  these  districts.  But  the  plan  of  Merodach 
Baladan  had  not  been  limited  to  Chaldcea  and  the  neigh- 
bouring regions.  The  far  West  was  equally  impatient 
of  Assyrian  rule  with  the  eastern  provinces,  and  the 
first  hope  of  the  Babylonian  leader  was  to  raise  the 
whole  empire  in  simultaneous  insurrection  from  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Persian  Gulf  It  is 
to  this  date  that  we  must  refer  his  embassy  to  Heze- 
kiah  spoken  of  in  2  Kings  xx.  (Isa.  xxxix),  for  which 
the  sickness  of  the  king  of  Judah  can  have  been  no 
more  than  the  formal  pretext,  since  we  are  told  that 
Hezekiah  "hearkened  to  the  ambassadors,"  and  dis- 
played before  them  the  resources  of  his  kingdom.  Such 
a  reception  given  to  a  declared  rebel  against  Assyria 
could  have  but  one  meaning.  It  meant  that  the 
king  of  Judah  was  more  than  half  inclined  to  join 
the  revolt.  Merodach  Baladan,  in  fact,  had  not  mis- 
judged the  feelings  of  the  Palestinian  nations.  The 
Philistine  states  especially,  the  old  hotbed  of  revolt,  were 
in  a  ferment  of  exultation  at  the  news  of  Sargon's  death, 
and  already  committed  to  war,  and  the  contagion  of 
their  enthusiasm  had  reached  Judah,  Hezekiah,  how- 
ever, does  not  seem  to  have  engaged  liimself  to  imnie- 


LECT.  VIII.  MERODACH  BALADAN.  319 

diate  action.  He  was  not  disposed  to  advance  without 
the  aid  of  Egypt,  and  the  diplomacy  of  the  Pharaohs 
moved  slowly.  But  while  the  king  hesitated,  Isaiah 
had  at  once  taken  up  his  position.  At  the  first  news 
of  the  attitude  of  the  Philistines  he  had  sounded  a  note 
of  warning  in  the  brief  prophecy  preserved  in  xiv.  29- 
32.  "Eejoice  not,  0  all  Philistia,  that  the  rod  that  smote 
thee  is  broken  ;  for  from  the  root  of  the  serpent  shall 
come  forth  a  basilisk,  and  its  fruit  shall  be  a  flying 
dragon."  Sennacherib,  that  is  to  say,  will  prove  an 
enemy  still  more  dangerous  than  his  father.  The  cities 
of  Philistia  are  doomed,  "  for  a  smoke  cometh  out  of  the 
north " — the  cloud  that  marks  the  approach  of  the 
Assyrian  host  — "  and  there  is  no  straggler  in  his  bands." 
But  if  Judah  hold  the  safe  course,  and  eschew  all  con- 
nection with  foreign  schemes  of  liberation,  the  destruc- 
tion shall  not  be  suffered  to  affect  Hezekiah,  or  disturb 
the  peace  of  the  poorest  in  his  land  (xiv.  30).  What 
answer  then  should  be  made  to  the  ambassadors  of  the 
nation  which  solicits  the  Judsean  alliance  ?  *'  That 
Jehovah  hath  founded  Zion,  and  in  it  His  afflicted 
people  shall  find  shelter."  ^ 

Thirty  years  had  passed  since  Isaiah  first  struck  this 
very  note  of  warning  and  of  hope  in  his  famous  inter- 
view with  Ahaz,  at  a  time  when  the  leaders  of  Judah 
were  as  eager  to  commit  themselves  to  the  Assyrian 
tutelage  as  they  now  were  impatient  to  throw  it  off. 
The  new  generation  which  had  grown  up  in  the  interval, 
and  now  held  the  reins  of  the  state,  had  seen  greater 


320  A  TTITUDE  lect.  viii. 

changes  take  place  in  their  own  lifetime  than  had 
passed  before  all  the  generations  of  their  fathers  from 
the  time  of  Solomon  downwards.  Judah  Avas  like  a 
ship  that  had  lost  its  rudder,  drifting  at  the  mercy  of 
shifting  winds.  Every  ancient  principle  of  national 
policy  had  disappeared  or  been  reversed.  No  one  knew 
whither  the  state  was  tendins^,  or  Avhat  results  mic^ht 
flow^  from  the  new  alliance  with  Philistia  and  Egypt,  so 
contrary  to  all  the  traditions  of  past  history,  which  the 
king  and  his  counsellors  were  disposed  to  welcome  as 
offering  at  least  a  hope  of  momentary  relief  from  a 
bondage  that  had  become  intolerable.  During  these 
thirty  years  Isaiah  alone  had  remained  ever  constant  to 
himself,  alike  free  from  panic  and  flattering  self-delusion, 
unshaken  by  the  successes  of  Assyria,  assured  that  no 
political  combination  which  lay  within  the  horizon  of 
Judican  statesmanship  could  stem  the  tide  of  conquest, 
but  not  less  assured  that  Jehovah's  kingdom  stood  im- 
movable, the  one  sure  rock  in  the  midst  ot  the  surging 
waters.  An  attitude  so  imposing  in  its  calm  and  stead- 
fast faith,  and  justified  by  so  many  proofs  of  true  insight 
and  sound  political  judgment,  could  not  fail  to  secure 
for  Isaiah  a  deep  and  growing  influence.  He  no  longer, 
as  in  the  days  of  Ahaz,  confronted  the  king  as  a  mere 
isolated  individual,  whose  counsels  could  be  contemptu- 
ously brushed  aside.  The  prophetic  word  had  become 
a  power  in  Jerusalem,  and  though  the  "  scornful  men," 
who  despised  Jehovah's  w^ord  and  trusted  in  oj^pression 
and  crooked  ways  (xxx.  9-12),  were  still  predominant  in 


LECT.  V 1 1 1 .  OF  ISA  I  A  H. 


the  counsels  of  state,  they  were  afraid  ojjenly  to  chal- 
lenge the  opposition  of  Isaiah  nntil  the  nation  was  too 
deeply  committed  to  draw  back.  Their  plans  of  revolt 
were  matured  in  all  secrecy  ;  they  hid  their  counsel  deep 
from  Jehovah  and  kept  their  actions  in  the  dark — so 
Isaiah  complains  —  saying,  AMio  seeth  us  and  who 
knoweth  us  ?  (xxix.  15;.  The  prolonged  wars  of  Sen- 
nacherib in  the  east  gave  them  time  to  ripen  their 
plans  in  j^rivate  negotiation  with  Egypt.  An  embassy 
was  sent  to  Zoan  with  a  train  of  camels  and  asses  bear- 
ing a  rich  treasure  as  the  best  argument  to  secure  the 
assistance  of  Pharaoh  (xxx.  1-G).  The  delay  which 
attended  these  negotiations  was  in  itself  sufficient  to 
ruin  the  prospects  of  the  conspirators,  for  it  gave  Sen- 
nacherib time  to  crush  the  Babylonians  and  their  allies 
in  detail,  before  the  flame  of  war  broke  out  in  the  west. 
Even  the  common  political  judgment  must  justify  Isaiah 
when  he  pointed  out  that  the  strength  of  the  Assyrian 
was  in  no  sense  broken  by  the  death  of  Sargon,  and 
that  the  inertness  of  the  Egyptians  gave  no  promise  of 
effectual  help  (xxx  7).  When  Sennacherib  had  secured 
his  eastern  provinces,  and  at  last  moved  westward 
(701  B.C.),  the  aUies  had  effected  as  good  as  nothing. 
Xo  Egyptian  army  was  yet  in  the  field.  The  Philistines 
had  risen  in  conjunction  with  Hezekiah,  and  King  Padi 
of  Ekron,  the  vassal  of  Sennacherib,  had  been  laid  in 
chains  in  Jerusalem  ;  the  Phoenician  cities  were  also  in 
revolt,  but  no  scheme  of  joint  action  was  x>repare3,  and 
the  Great  King  advanced  victoriously  along  the  Mediter- 

15 


322  ISAIAH  AND  THE  lect.  viii. 


ranean  coast.     The  first  blow  fell  upon  Tyre,  Zidon,  and 

the  minor  Phoenician  ports,  and,  when  they  were  reduced, 

the  Samaritans,*  Ammonites,  Moabites,  Edomites,  and 

even  a  part  of  the  Philistines,  hastened  to  bring  gifts 

and  do  homage  to  the  conqueror.     Still  continuing  his 

march  along  the  coast,  Sennacherib  successively  reduced 

Ashkelon  and  the  other  maritime  cities  of  Philistia ;  and, 

having  thus  thrown  his  force  between  the  Palestinian 

rebels  and  their  tardy  allies  of  Egypt,  he  was  able  to  turn 

his  arms  inland  against  Ekron  and  Judsca  without  fear 

of  their  forces  effecting  a  junction  with  Tirhakah.     Tir- 

hakah,  in  fact,  had  already  begun  to  move,  and  sent  an 

army  to  the  relief  of  Ekron,  but  it  was  defeated  at 

Eltekeh,^  and  compelled  to  retire  without  effecting  its 

purpose.      From  this  moment  the  fall  of  Ekron  was 

assured,  and  the  Judaeans,  who  had  been  the  soul  of  the 

revolt  in  Southern  Palestine,  had  no  human  hope  of 

deliverance  from  the  Great  King.    The  crisis  had  arrived 

which  Isaiah  had  so  long  foreseen ;  the  last  act  of  the 

Divine  judgment  had  opened,  and  all  eyes  could  now  see 

the  madness  of  a  policy  which  had  sought  help  and 

counsel  from  man  and  not  from  God. 

During  the  three  years  of  suspense  that  intervened 

between  the  embassy  of  Merodach  Baladan  to  Heze- 

kiah  and  the  defeat  of  tlie  forces  of  Egypt  and  Ethiopia 

at  Eltekeh,  Isaiah  had  never  wavered  in  his  judgment 

on  the  insensate  folly  of  the  rulers  of  Judah.     When 

the  s*ecret  of  the  negotiations  with  Egypt,  so  long  hid 

with  care  from  Jehovah  and  His  prophet,  was  at  length 
*  See  page  439. 


LECT.  VIII.  EGYPTIAN  ALLIANCE.  323 

divulged,  and  the  whole  nation  was  carried  away  by  a 
tide  of  patriotic  enthusiasm,  his  indignation  found  utter- 
ance in  burning  words.  The  political  folly  of  the  scheme 
was  palpable  ;  the  enthusiasm  with  which  it  was  greeted 
was  mere  intoxication  (xxix.  9).  Yet  it  was  not  for 
miscalculating  the  relative  strength  and  readiness  of 
Egypt  and  Assyria  that  Isaiah  blamed  his  countrymen, 
but  for  entering  at  all  into  a  calculation  which  left 
Jehovah  out  of  the  reckoning.  "  Woe  to  them  that  go 
down  to  Egypt  for  help,  and  stay  on  horses  and  trust  in 
chariots  because  they  are  many,  and  on  horsemen  be- 
cause they  are  a  great  host ;  but  they  look  not  to  the 
Holy  One  of  Israel,  neither  do  they  consult  Jehovah. 
Yet  He  is  wise,  and  bringeth  evil,  and  will  not  call  back 
His  words,  but  will  rise  against  the  house  of  evildoers 
and  the  help  of  them  that  work  iniquity.  The  Egyptians 
are  men  and  not  God,  and  their  horses  flesh  and  not 
spirit :  Jehovah  stretcheth  forth  His  hand,  and  the  helper 
stumbleth,  and  he  that  is  holpen  faUs,  yea,  all  of  them 
shall  fail  together  "  (xxxi.  1  seq}).  Their  plans  had  left 
out  of  account  the  one  factor  that  really  makes  history, 
the  supreme  purpose  and  will  of  the  Holy  One  of  Israel. 
A  judicial  blindness  seemed  to  cover  the  eyes  of  Judah. 
Jehovah  had  poured  upon  them  a  spirit  of  deep  sleep  ; 
His  revelation  had  become  a  sealed  and  illegible  book 
to  the  nation  which  called  itself  Jehovah's  people,  but 
refused  to  hear  His  counsel  (xxix.  10  sec[).  He  had 
long  since  set  before  His  people  the  path  of  true  deliver- 
ance.   "  Thus  saith  the  Lord  Jehovah,  By  returning  and 


324  ISAIAH  WAS  NOT  lect.  viii. 

rest  ye  sliall  be  saved  ;  in  quietness  and  confidence  sliall 
be  your  strength  :  but  ye  would  not."  Tlie  rest  and 
quietness  which  Isaiah  prescribes  are  not  the  rest  of 
indolence  ;  he  calls  on  Israel  to  abjure  the  vain  bustle 
of  foreign  politics  and  put  their  trust  in  Jehovah  ;  but 
faith  in  Jehovah  brings  its  own  obligations, — conformity 
to  Jehovah's  law,  the  establishment  of  religion  as  a 
practical  power  in  daily  life,  and  not  as  a  mere  precept 
of  men  learned  by  rote.  To  think  that  the  divine  wrath 
expressed  in  the  continuance  of  Assyrian  oppression  can 
be  escaped  where  these  conditions  are  ignored  is  to 
reduce  Jehovah  to  the  level  of  man ;  it  is  not  against 
Assyria  but  against  Jehovah  Himself  that  the  plans  of 
Judah  are  directed.  "  Out  on  your  perversity,"  he  cries  ; 
"  shall  the  potter  be  esteemed  as  the  clay,  that  the  thing 
made  should  say  of  him  that  made  it.  He  made  me  not  ? 
or  the  thing  framed  of  him  that  framed  it,  He  hath  no 
understanding?"  (xxix.  16).  Not  by  such  vain  rebellion 
against  the  Maker  of  Israel  can  peace  and  help  be  found. 
Jehovah's  salvation  must  be  sought  in  His  own  way, 
and  when  it  comes  it  shall  sweep  away  not  only  the 
foreign  tyrant,  but  the  idolatry  and  traditional  formalism 
of  the  masses,  the  oppressive  and  untruthful  rule  of  the 
godless  nobles  (xxxi.  7  ;  xxxii.  1  scq.). 

To  a  superficial  view  the  teaching  of  Isaiah  in  this 
juncture  may  seem  to  present  the  aspect  of  political 
fatalism.  The  apparent  patriotism  of  his  opponents 
enlists  a  ready  sympathy,  and  the  prophet's  declaration 
that   it   was   vain   to   attempt   anything    against   the 


LECT.  VIII.  A  FATALIST,  325 

Assyrian  till  Jeliovah  Himself  rose  to  bring  deliverance 
is  very  apt  to  be  confounded  with  the  vulgar  type  of 
Oriental  indolence,  which  identifies  submission  to  the 
divine  will  with  a  neglect  of  the  natural  means  to  a 
desired  end,  leaving  the  means  and  the  end  alike  to  the 
sovereignty  of  fate.  Such  a  view  altogether  mistakes 
the  true  point  of  Isaiah's  argument.  He  does  not  refuse 
the  use  of  means,  but  condemns  the  choice  of  means 
that  are  necessarily  inadequate  because  they  ignore  the 
conditions  of  Jehovah's  sovereignty.  If  the  plans  of 
Hezekiah  and  his  princes  had  succeeded,  they  would 
still  have  contributed  nothing  to  the  true  deliverance  of 
Judah.  To  be  freed  from  Assyria  only  that  the  rulers 
of  the  land  might  continue  their  oppressions  uncon- 
trolled, that  religion  might  go  on  in  its  old  round  of 
formal  observances  which  had  no  influence  on  conduct, 
that  the  credit  of  the  idols  might  be  re-established,  and 
the  true  word  of  Jehovah  still  treated  with  contumely, 
would  have  been  no  benefit  to  the  land.  Isaiah  was 
not  the  enemy  of  patriotic  effort,  but  only  of  the  spurious 
patriotism  that  identifies  national  prosperity  with  the 
undisturbed  persistence  of  cherished  abuses  ;  he  did  not 
value  political  freedom  less  than  his  countrymen  did, 
but  he  valued  it  only  when  it  meant  freedom  from 
internal  disorders  as  well  as  from  foreign  domination,  the 
substitution  for  Assyrian  bondage  of  the  effective 
sovereignty  of  Jehovah's  holiness. 

And  so  the  criticism  which  Isaiah  directed  against 
the  policy  of  Egyptian  alliance  was  not  merely  negative. 


326  THE  SALVATION  lect.  viii. 

As  a  true  prophet  he  could  not  preach  the  vanity  of  mere 
human  helpers  without  at  the  same  time  unfolding  the 
all-sufificiency  of  the  divine  Saviour.  The  crisis  which 
the  folly  of  the  rulers  had  brought  upon  the  nation  had 
to  Isaiah  a  meaning  of  mercy  as  well  as  of  judgment,  for 
mercy  and  judgment  meet  in  those  supreme  moments 
of  history  when  the  wisdom  of  the  wise  and  the  under- 
standing of  the  prudent  are  confounded  before  Jehovah's 
counsel,  when  the  arm  of  flesh  is  broken,  and  the  might 
of  Jehovah  stands  revealed  to  every  eye.  The  impend- 
ing destruction  of  the  human  helpers  of  Judah,  the 
confusion  that  awaits  those  who  put  their  trust  in 
idols  and  in  that  religion  learned  by  rote  (xxix.  13)  of 
which  the  idols  were  a  part  (xxxi.  7),  the  disasters 
which  are  prepared  for  the  armies  of  Hezekiah  (xxx.  17), 
the  overthrow  of  citadel  and  fortress,  and  the  desolation 
of  the  fruitful  land  (xxxii.  9  seq^),  are  so  many  steps 
towards  the  great  turning-point  of  Israel's  history, 
when  all  the  delusive  things  of  earth  that  blind  men's 
eyes  to  spiritual  realities  are  swept  away,  and  Jehovah 
alone  remains  as  the  supreme  reality  and  the  one  help 
of  His  people.  "  In  that  day  shall  the  deaf  hear  the 
words  of  the  book  [of  revelation,  xxix.  11],  and  the  eyes 
of  the  blind  shall  see  out  of  darkness  and  out  of 
obscurity.  And  the  afflicted  ones  shall  renew  their  joy 
in  Jehovah,  and  the  poor  among  men  shall  rejoice  in 
the  Holy  One  of  Israel.  For  the  tyrant  is  brought  to 
nought,  and  the  scorner  is  consumed,  and  all  that 
watched  for  iniquity  are  cut  off,  that  make  men  to 


LECT.  VIII.  OF  ISRAEL.  327 

sin  by  their  words,  and  lay  a  snare  for  liim  that  judgeth 
in  the  gate,  and  undo  him  that  is  in  the  right  by  empty 
guiles."  Jehovah's  deliverance,  you  observe,  is  not 
limited  to  the  overthrow  of  the  Assyrian  ;  its  goal  is 
the  establishment  of  His  revelation  as  the  law  of  Israel, 
and  especially  as  alawthat  restores  justice  in  the  land  and 
enables  the  poor  and  oppressed  to  rejoice  in  their  divine 
King.  "  Therefore,  thus  saith  Jehovah,  who  redeemed 
Abraham,  unto  the  house  of  Jacob,  Jacob  shall  not  now 
be  ashamed,  neither  shall  his  face  now  wax  pale ;  for 
when  his  children  see  it,  even  the  work  of  My  hands 
in  the  midst  of  him,  they  shall  sanctify  My  name  and 
sanctify  the  Holy  One  of  Jacob,  and  shall  fear  the 
God  of  Israel.  And  they  that  erred  in  spirit  shall 
come  to  understanding,  and  they  that  murmured  shall 
learn  instruction  "  (xxix.  18-24). 

Thus  the  words  of  stern  rebuke  which  Isaiah  con- 
tinued to  direct  against  the  princes  and  their  carnal 
policy  (chaps,  xxix.-xxxii.)  are  mingled  with  pictures  of 
salvation,  in  which  the  main  ideas  are  those  already 
developed  in  earlier  prophecies,  but  set  forth  with  a 
depth  of  sympathy  and  tender  feeling  to  which  none  of 
the  earlier  prophecies  attain.  The  prophet's  fire  had  not 
been  quenched,  but  his  spirit  was  chastened  and  his 
faith  mellowed  by  the  experience  of  forty  years  spent  in 
waiting  for  the  salvation  which  Judah's  unbelief  had  so 
long  deferred.  One  can  see  that  the  old  man  had  begun 
to  live  much  in  the  future,  that  he  was  glad  to  look 
beyond  the  present,  and  delight  himself  in  the  images 


328  THE  BLESSEDNESS  lect.  viii. 

of  peace  and  holiness  that  lay  on  the  other  side  of  the 
last  and  crowning  trouble  which  the  nation  had  so 
wantonly  drawn  upon  itself.  Jehovah  is  ready  with 
grace  and  help  at  the  first  voice  of  repentant  supplica- 
tion. "  He  waiteth  long  that  He  may  be  gracious  unto 
you  ;  He  lifteth  Himself  on  high  that  He  may  have 
compassion  upon  you,  for  Jehovah  is  the  God  of  judg- 
ment ;  blessed  are  all  they  that  wait  for  Him.  Nay ! 
weep  no  more,  0  people  of  Zion,  that  dwellest  in 
Jerusalem ;  He  will  surely  be  gracious  to  thee  at  the 
voice  of  thy  cry,  even  as  He  heareth  it  He  will  answer 
thee.  And  when  the  Lord  giveth  you  the  bread  of 
adversity  and  the  water  of  afHiction,  yet  shall  not  thy 
Eevealer  be  hidden  any  more,  but  thine  eyes  shall 
see  thy  Eevealer;  and  thine  ears  shall  hear  a  word 
behind  thee  saying,  This  is  the  way,  walk  ye  in  it,  when 
ye  turn  to  the  right  hand  or  to  the  left.  Then  ye  shall 
defile  the  silver  plating  of  your  graven  images,  and  the 
golden  overlaying  of  your  molten  images  ;  thou  shalt 
cast  them  away  as  a  foul  thing  ;  thou  shalt  say  to  it. 
Get  thee  hence.  Thus  He  shall  give  the  rain  of  thy  seed 
that  thou  sowest  the  ground  withal,  and  bread  of  the 
increase  of  the  earth,  and  it  shall  be  rich  and  full ;  in 
that  day  shall  the  cattle  feed  in  large  pastures.  .  .  . 
Moreover,  the  light  of  the  moon  shall  be  as  the  light  of 
the  sun,  and  the  lii^ht  of  the  sun  shall  be  sevenfold,  in 
the  day  tliat  Jehovah  bindeth  up  the  hurt  of  His  people 
and  healeth  the  stroke  of  their  wound"  (xxx.  18,  scg). 
In  these  pictures  of  assured  prosperity  in  a  nation  that 


LECT.  VIII.  OF  THE  LAST  DA  YS.  329 

has  cast  aside  its  idols  to  seek  deliverance  and  continual 
guidance  from  the  true  Teacher,  Isaiah  dwells  again  and 
again,  and  with  a  fulness  which  we  are  apt  to  think 
disproportionate,  on  images  of  fertility  and  natural 
abundance,  of  plenty  and  contentment  for  man  and 
beast,  when  streams  flow  on  every  mountain  (xxx.  25), 
when  Lebanon  is  changed  to  a  fruitful  field,  and  the 
fruitful  field  of  to-day  shall  be  esteemed  as  a  forest 
(xxix.  17).  There  is  true  poetical  pathos  in  these 
images  of  rural  peace  and  felicity,  drawn  by  an  old  man 
whose  life  had  been  spent  in  the  turmoil  of  the  capital, 
in  the  m.idst  of  the  creations  of  earthly  pride,  where  the 
works  of  man's  hands  disguised  the  simple  tokens  of 
Jehovah's  goodness.  But  the  emphasis  which  Isaiah 
lays  on  the  gifts  of  natural  fertility  has  more  than  a 
poetic  motive.  Trom  the  days  of  his  earliest  prophecies 
he  had  pointed  to  the  ''  spring  of  Jehovah,"  the  God- 
given  fruits  of  the  earth,  as  the  true  glory  of  the  remnant 
of  Israel,  —  the  best  of  blessings,  because  they  come 
straight  from  heaven,  and  are  the  true  basis  of  a  peace- 
ful and  God-fearing  life  (chap.  iv.).  And  so  he  draws 
once  more  the  old  contrast  between  the  immediate 
prospect  of  a  land  desolated  by  invading  hosts,  w^hen  the 
pleasant  fields  and  the  fruitful  vineyards  lie  waste, 
when  the  gladsome  houses  of  the  joyous  cities  of  Judah 
are  covered  with  thorns  and  briers,  when  the  citadel  is 
forsaken  and  the  turmoil  of  the  city  changed  to  silence, 
when  ruined  fortress  and  tower  are  the  haunt  of  the 
wild  asses,  a  pasture  for  flocks,  and  the  da}'s  of  Israel's 


330  THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  lect.  viii. 

restoration,  "  when  the  spirit  is  poured  upon  us  from  on 
high,  and  the  wilderness  shall  be  a  fruitful  field,  and  the 
fruitful  field  be  counted  for  a  forest."  To  Isaiah  the 
fertility  of  the  land  is  a  spiritual  blessing,  the  token  of 
acceptance  with  Jehovah,  the  seal  of  the  return  of  the 
nation  to  the  paths  of  righteousness  and  true  obedience. 
The  desert  is  transformed  to  fertility,  for  judgment 
dwells  in  it,  and  righteousness  abides  in  the  fruitful 
field.  "  And  the  effect  of  righteousness  shall  be  peace, 
and  the  reward  of  righteousness  quietness  and  security 
for  ever.  And  My  people  shall  dwell  in  a  peaceable 
habitation  and  in  sure  dwellings  and  in  quiet  resting- 
places."  "  Blessed  are  ye  that  sow  beside  all  waters, 
sending  forth  the  feet  of  the  ox  and  the  ass  "  to  tread  in 
the  seed.  Blessed  is  Israel,  when  the  turmoil  of  the 
present  has  passed  away  for  ever,  and  all  corners  of  the 
land  are  again  the  scene  of  the  yearly  routine  of  simple 
husbandry  (xxxii.  12,  seq}). 

There  is  a  tinge  of  weariness,  an  earnest  longing 
after  rest,  in  these  idyllic  pictures,  but  Isaiah  did  not 
suffer  them  to  withdraw  his  attention  from  the  pressing 
questions  of  the  present.  Step  by  step  he  watched  the 
progress  of  events.  While  all  around  him  were  still 
steeped  in  careless  security,  wliile  the  feasts  still  ran 
their  round,  and  more  than  one  year  passed  by  and 
brought  no  tidings  of  the  approach  of  Sennacherib,  he 
continued  to  send  forth  words  of  warning.  Jehovah 
Himself  is  preparing  the  onslaught.  He  will  camp 
against  Zion  round  about,  and  build  siege -works  and 


LECT.viii.  WORLD'S  HISTORY.  331 

forts  against  the  city  of  David,  and  the  deliverance  shall 
not  come  till  Jerusalem  is  humbled  to  the  dust,  and  her 
plaintive  cry  seems  to  rise  from  the  depths  of  the  earth 
like  the  voice  of  a  ghost.  But  in  the  last  extremity  her 
help  is  sure,  and  her  adversaries  vanish  as  chaff  before 
the  wind.  "  She  shall  be  visited  of  Jehovah  of  hosts 
with  thunder,  and  with  earthquake,  and  great  noise, 
with  storm  and  tempest,  and  the  flame  of  devouring  fire. 
And  the  multitude  of  all  the  nations  that  fight  against 
Ariel — the  hearth  of  God — even  all  that  fight  against 
her  and  her  munition,  and  they  that  distress  her,  shall 
be  as  a  dream,  a  vision  of  the  night"  (xxix.  1  seq^. 
Thus  assured  of  the  limits  of  the  appointed  judgment, 
Isaiah  follows  with  calmness  the  gradual  evolution  of 
Jehovah's  purpose.  The  Assyrian  is  drawing  nigh  to 
discharge  his  last  commission,  to  complete  the  work  of 
judgment,  and  then  to  disappear  for  ever.  The  great- 
ness of  the  crisis  and  the  lofty  eminence  of  faith  from 
which  Isaiah  looks  down  upon  it  declare  themselves  in 
an  expansion  of  the  prophetic  horizon.  The  impending 
decision  is  not  merely  the  turning-point  of  Israel's 
history,  it  is  the  crisis  of  the  history  of  the  world ;  the 
future  not  of  Judah  alone,  but  of  all  the  nations,  from 
Tarshish  in  the  Mediterranean  "West,  and  Meroe  in  the 
distant  South,  to  the  far  Eastern  lands  of  Elam,  hangs 
upon  the  approaching  conflict.  On  every  side  the 
nations  are  mustering  to  battle  ;  Assyria,  on  its  part,  is 
gathering  the  peoples  of  the  East  (xvii.  12  ;  xxii.  6  ; 
xxix.  7) ;  on  the  Nile  swift  messengers  are  hurrying  to 


332  THE  ADVANCE  lect.  viii. 

and  fro  betwixt  Ethiopia  and  Egypt  (xviii.  2) ;  and  tlie 
centre  of  all  this  turmoil  is  Jehovah's  mountain  land  of 
Judah.  For  Jehovah  hath  sworn  that  in  His  land  the 
Assyrian  shall  be  broken,  and  on  His  mountains  He  will 
tread  him  nnder  foot.  "  This  is  the  purpose  that  is 
purposed  upon  the  whole  earth,  and  this  is  the  hand 
that  is  stretched  out  upon  all  nations"  (xiv.  24-27). 
And  so  the  prophet  calls  upon  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
world  to  watch  for  the  decisive  moment,  the  signal  of 
Jehovah's  visible  intervention,  when  the  ensign  is  lifted 
up  on  the  mountains,  and  the  trumpet  blast  proclaims 
the  great  catastrophe.  Meanwhile  Jehovah  in  His 
heavenly  dwelling-place  looks  down  at  ease  upon  the 
gradual  ripening  of  His  purpose,  as  the  skies  seem  lazily 
to  watch  the  ripening  grapes  on  a  clear  bright  day  in 
the  hot  autumn.  "For  before  the  vintage,  when  the 
blossom  is  over  and  the  flower  gives  place  to  the  ripen- 
ing grape,  He  shall  cut  off  the  sprigs  with  pruning-hooks, 
and  the  branches  shall  He  hew  away."  Thus  surely  and 
without  interruption  shall  the  Assyrian  mature  his  plans 
of  universal  conquest,  till  Jehovah  Himself  strikes  in, 
and  the  invincible  armies  of  Nineveh  are  left  together  to 
the  fowls  of  the  mountains  and  to  the  beasts  of  the 
earth;  and  the  vultures  shall  summer  upon  their 
carcasses,  and  all  the  beasts  of  the  earth  shall  winter 
upon  them.  Then  shall  Mount  Zion,  the  place  of  the 
name  of  Jehovah  of  hosts,  be  known  to  all  the  ends  of 
the  earth,  and  from  far  Ethiopia  tribute  and  homage  shall 
flow  to  Jehovah's  shrine  (xviii.  4-7). 


LECT.  VIII.  OF  SENNACHERIB.  333 

Thus,  while  Isaiah  does  not  cease  to  concentrate  his 
chief  attention  on  Israel,  or  to  regard  the  restoration  and 
true  redemption  of  the  ancient  people  of  Jehovah  as  the 
central  feature  of  the  Divine  purpose,  the  largeness  of 
the  historical  issues  involved  in  the  downfall  of  the 
supreme  world-power  carries  the  prophetic  vision  far 
beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  Judah,  and  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Assyrian  tyrant  the  King  of  Israel  declares 
Himself  Lord  of  all  the  earth.  And  so  when  Babylon 
had  fallen  (xxiii.  13),  and  Sennacherib  at  length  began  his 
destroying  march  upon  the  western  provinces,  Isaiah 
followed  his  progress  with  absorbing  and  almost  sympa- 
thetic interest.  First  he  announces  the  speedy  discom- 
fiture of  the  Arab  tribes ;  within  a  short  year  all  the 
glory  of  Kedar  shall  be  consumed,  and  the  remnant  of  the 
bowmen  of  the  desert  shall  be  few  (xxi.  13  seq^.  And 
next,  as  we  know  was  the  actual  course  of  events,  the 
stroke  shall  fall  on  the  proud  city  of  Tyre,  the  mart  of 
nations,  whose  merchants  are  princes,  and  her  traffickers 
the  honourable  of  the  earth  ;  for  Jehovah  of  hosts  hath 
purposed  to  stain  the  pride  of  all  glory,  and  to  bring 
into  contempt  all  the  honourable  of  the  earth  (chap, 
xxiii.).  And  still  the  career  of  the  destroyer  has  not 
reached  its  end  :  "  Behold  Jehovah  rideth  upon  a  swift 
cloud,  and  cometh  unto  Egypt,  and  the  idols  of  Egypt 
shall  be  moved  at  His  presence,  and  the  heart  of  Egypt 
shall  melt  in  the  midst  thereof."  The  strength  of 
Pharaoh  is  brought  to  nought,  and  the  wisdom  of  his 
counsellors  is  changed  to  folly  ;  the  laud  is   divided 


334  CONVERSION  OF  lect.  viii. 

against  itself  and  passes  under  the  hand  of  a  cruel  Lord 
— the  merciless  king  of  Assyria  (chap.  xix.).  It  is 
Jehovah  Himself  that  leads  the  armies  of  Nineveh  in 
this  career  of  universal  conquest,  paralysing  the  arms 
of  their  enemies  ;  all  the  nations  must  be  abased  before 
Him,  the  strength  of  the  world  must  be  laid  low,  that 
His  majesty  may  be  exalted  and  every  land  do  homage 
to  Him.  The  crowning  decision  has  assumed  propor- 
tions so  vast  that  its  issue  can  be  nothing  less  than  the 
subjugation  of  the  inhabited  world  to  Jehovah's  throne. 
For  the  desolation  of  the  kingdoms  is  no  longer,  as  it 
had  appeared  to  earlier  prophecy,  a  mere  work  of  judg- 
ment on  a  godless  world.  To  them  as  well  as  to  Judah, 
if  not  in  so  exalted  a  sense,  the  judgment  is  the  prelude 
to  a  great  conversion.  Tyre  shall  be  forgotten  for  seventy 
years — the  period,  as  the  prophet  explains  it,  of  a  single 
reign — and  then  Jehovah  shall  visit  her  in  mercy,  and 
she  shall  return  to  her  merchandise  and  her  gains,  no 
longer  to  heap  up  treasure  in  the  temple  of  Melkarth, 
but  to  consecrate  her  wealth  to  Jehovah,  and  supply 
abundance  of  food  and  princely  clothing  to  the  people 
of  Israel  that  dwell  in  His  presence. 

We  see  from  this  detail  that  Isaiah  still  pictures 
the  conversion  of  the  nations  under  the  limitations 
prescribed  by  the  national  idea  of  religion,  which  the 
Old  Testament  never  wholly  laid  aside,  which  could 
not  indeed  be  superseded  in  an  age  to  which  all  cosmo- 
politan ideas  were  utterly  foreign.  But,  while  Isaiah 
was  unable  to  conceive  of  the  conversion  of  foreign 


LECT.  VIII.  TYRE  AND  EGYPT.  335 

nations  to  Jehovah  in  any  other  form  than  that  of 
homage  done  to  the  Divine  King  that  reigned  on  Zion, 
and  tribute  paid  to  His  court,  we  should  greatly  err  if 
we  imagined  that  this  conception  sprang,  as  has  some- 
times been  supposed,  from  mere  national  vanity.  The 
subjection  of  the  nations  to  Jehovah's  throne,  and  the 
share  which  they  thus  obtain  in  the  blessings  of  peace 
and  good  governance  that  are  ministered  by  His  sovereign 
word  of  revelation  (ii.  2  sf^.)  is  no  grievous  bondage, 
but  their  best  privilege  and  happiness,  their  redemption 
from  the  cruel  yoke  which  pressed  so  heavily  on  all  the 
earth.  This  appears  most  clearly  in  the  prophecy  of 
the  conversion  of  Egypt  in  chap.  xix.  On  no  land  do 
the  evils  of  a  selfish  and  oppressive  government  weigh 
so  grievously  as  on  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  where  the 
very  conditions  of  life  and  the  maintenance  of  the 
fertility  of  the  soil  depend  on  a  continual  attention  to 
the  canals  and  other  public  works,  the  condition  of 
which  has,  in  all  ages,  been  the  best  criterion  of  a  strong 
and  considerate  administration.^  This  characteristic  fea- 
ture of  the  economy  of  the  nation  does  not  escape  Isaiah, 
for  the  lofty  spirituality  of  his  aims  is  always  combined 
with  a  penetrating  insight  into  actual  historical  condi- 
tions. Under  the  cruel  king  whose  advent  dissolves 
the  government  of  the  Pharaohs,  and  sets  free  the 
intestine  jealousies  of  the  Egyptian  nomes,  the  prophet 
describes  the  canals  as  dried  up,  and  all  the  industries 
that  depended  on  them  as  paralysed.  Then  the  Egyp- 
tians shall  cry  unto  Jehovah  because  of  their  oppressors, 


336  CONVERSION  OF  lect.  viii. 

and  He  shall  send  them  a  saviour  and  a  prince,  and  He 
shall  deliver  them.  "  And  Jehovah  shall  be  known  to 
Egypt,  and  the  Egyptians  shall  know  Jehovah  on  that 
day,  and  shall  do  worship  with  sacrifice  and  oblation, 
and  shall  vow  vows  to  Jehovah,  and  perform  them." 
Then  all  the  lands  of  the  known  world  from  Egypt  to 
Assyria  shall  serve  the  God  of  Jacob.  "  Israel  shall  be 
the  third  with  Egypt  and  Assyria,  even  a  blessing  in 
the  midst  of  the  earth,  whom  Jehovah  of  hosts  shall 
bless,  saying,  Blessed  be  Egypt  my  people,  and  Assyria 
the  w^ork  of  my  hands,  and  Israel  mine  inheritance." 
Never  had  the  faith  of  prophet  soared  so  high,  or  ap- 
proached so  near  to  the  conception  of  a  universal  religion, 
set  free  from  every  trammel  of  national  individuality. 
Eor  now  the  history  of  the  w^orld  had  narrowed  itself  to 
a  single  issue;  the  fate  of  all  nations  turned  on  the 
decisive  contest  between  the  Assyrian  and  the  God  of 
Zion  ;  and  it  was  plain  that  Jehovah's  kingship  in  Israel 
was  naught  unless  it  could  approve  itself  by  arguments 
that  spoke  to  all  the  earth. ^ 

If  the  vindication  of  the  divine  mission  of  the  pro- 
phets of  Israel  must  be  sought  in  the  precision  of  detail 
with  which  they  related  beforehand  the  course  of  coming 
events,  the  hopes  which  Isaiah  continued  to  preach 
during  the  victorious  advance  of  Sennacherib  must  be 
reckoned  as  vain  imaginations.  The  great  decision 
which  shall  call  back  tlie  earth  to  the  service  of  the 
true  God  is  still  an  object  of  faith,  and  not  an  accom- 
plished reality.     The  Assyrians  passed  away,  and  new 


LECT.  VIII.  EGYPT  AND  ASSYRIA.  337 


powers  rose  upon  the  ruins  of  tlieir  greatness  to  repeat 
in  other  forms  the  battle  of  earthly  empire  against  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  As  Babylonia  and  Persia,  Greece  and 
Eome,  successively  rose  and  fell,  the  sphere  of  the  great 
movements  of  history  continually  enlarged,  till  at  length 
a  new  world  went  forth  from  the  dissolution  of  ancient 
society,  the  centre  of  human  history  was  shifted  to 
lands  unknown  to  the  Hebrews,  and  its  fortunes  w^ere 
committed  to  nations  still  unborn  when  Isaiah  preached. 
Not  only  have  Isaiah's  predictions  received  no  literal 
fulfilment,  but  it  is  impossible  that  the  evolution  of  the 
divine  purpose  can  ever  again  be  narrowed  within  the 
limits  of  the  petty  world  of  which  Judah  was  the  centre 
and  Egypt  and  Assyria  the  extremes.  Fanciful  theorists 
who  use  the  Old  Testament  as  a  book  of  curious 
mysteries,  and  profane  its  grandeur  by  adapting  it  to 
their  idle  visions  at  the  sacrifice  of  every  law  of  sound 
hermeneutics  and  sober  historical  judgment,  may  still 
dream  of  future  political  conjunctions  which  shall  restore 
to  Palestine  the  position  of  central  importance  which  it 
once  held  as  the  meeting-place  of  the  lands  of  ancient 
civilisation  ;  but  no  sane  thinker  can  seriously  imagine 
for  a  moment  that  Tyre  will  again  become  the  emporium 
of  the  world's  commerce  or  Jerusalem  the  seat  of 
universal  sovereignty.  The  forms  in  which  Isaiah 
enshrined  his  spiritual  hopes  are  broken,  and  cannot 
be  restored  ;  they  belong  to  an  epoch  of  history  that 
can  never  return,  and  the  same  line  of  argument  which 
leads  us  reverently  to  admire  the  divine  wisdom  that 


338  THE  FULFILMENT  lect.  viii. 

cliose  the  mountains  of  Palestine  as  the  cradle  of 
true  religion  at  a  time  when  Palestine  was,  in  a  very 
real  sense,  the  physical  centre  of  those  movements 
of  history  from  which  the  modern  world  has  grown, 
refutes  the  idea  that  the  Kinodom  of  the  livinii  God  can 
again  in  any  special  sense  be  identified  with  the  nation 
of  the  Jew^s  and  the  land  of  Canaan.  These  indeed  are 
considerations  which  have  lonj^  been  obvious  to  all  but 
a  few  fantastic  Millenarians,  whose  visions  deserve  no 
elaborate  refutation.  But  even  serious  students  of 
Scripture  do  not  always  clearly  realise  the  full  import 
of  the  failure  of  the  literalistic  view  of  prophecy  ;  and 
the  doctrine  of  literal  fulfilment,  rejected  in  principle,  is 
still  apt  to  exercise  a  fatal  influence  on  the  details  of 
prophetic  exegesis.  If  w^e  repudiate  the  dream  of  an 
earthly  Millennium,  with  Jerusalem  and  a  Jewish  re- 
storation as  its  centre,  we  have  no  right  to  reserve  for 
literal  fulfilment  such  details  of  the  prophecies  as  seem 
more  capable  of  being  reconciled  with  the  actual  march 
of  history,  or  to  rest  the  proof  of  the  prophets'  inspira- 
tion on  the  literal  realisation  of  isolated  parts  of  their 
pictures  of  the  future,  while  it  is  yet  certain  that  as 
a  whole  these  pictures  can  never  be  translated  into 
actuality — nay,  that  there  is  boundless  variety  and 
discrepancy  of  detail  between  the  pictures  contained  in 
the  various  prophetic  books,  or  even  between  those 
drawn  by  the  same  i)rophet  at  different  periods  of  his 
career. 

The  perception  of  these  difficulties,  which  can  escape 


LECT.  VIII.  OF  PROPHECY.  339 

no  thoughtful  reader  of  the  prophecies,  has  therefore 
long  formed  the  chief  support  of  the  figurative  or  alle- 
gorical school  of  exegesis,  which,  not  only  in  the  Old 
Catholic  and  MedioBval  Churches,  but  in  modern  Pro- 
testantism, may  claim  to  be  viewed  as  the  official  type 
of  prophetic  exegesis.  It  is  plain,  however,  that  this 
method  of  exegesis  labours  under  precisely  the  same 
difficulties  when  applied  to  prophecy  with  those  which 
have  caused  its  general  abandonment  as  regards  other 
parts  of  Scripture.  The  general  law  of  allegorical  in- 
terpretation, as  developed  in  the  ancient  Church,  is  that 
everything  which  in  its  literal  sense  seems  impossible, 
untrue,  or  unworthy  of  God  must  be  rescued  from  this 
condemnation  by  the  hypothesis  of  a  hidden  sense, 
which  was  the  real  meaning  of  the  inspiring  Spirit,  and 
even  of  the  prophet  himself,  except  in  so  far  as  he  was 
a  mere  unintelli^^ent  machine  in  the  hand  of  the  re- 
vealer.  Now,  it  is  certainly  true,  as  we  saw  in  a  former 
Lecture  (siqwa,  p.  221  seq^,  that  all  early  thought  about 
abstract  and  transcendental  ideas  is  largely  carried  out 
by  the  aid  of  figure  and  analogy,  and  that  general 
truths  are  apprehended  and  expressed  in  particular  and 
even  accidental  forms.  But  this  is  something  very 
different  from  the  doctrine  of  a  spiritual  sense  in  the 
traditional  meaning^  of  the  word.  It  means  that  the 
early  thinker  has  apprehended  only  germs  of  universal 
truth,  that  he  expresses  these  as  clearly  as  he  can,  and 
that  the  figurative .  or  imperfect  form  of  his  utterance 
corresponds  to  a  real  limitation  of  vision.     That  is  not 


340  THE  FULFILMENT  lect.  viii. 

the  principle  of  current  allegorical  exegesis,  which  holds 
rather  that  the  obscurity  of  form  is  intentional,  at  least 
on  the  part  of  the  revealing  Spirit,  and  so  that  the  true 
meaning  of  each  prophecy  is  the  maximum  of  New 
Testament  truth  that  can  be  taken  out  of  it  by  any  use 
of  allegory  which  the  Christian  reader  can  devise.  Such 
a  method  of  exegesis  is  purely  arbitrary;  it  enables 
each  man  to  prove  his  own  dogmas  at  will  from  the  Old 
Testament,  and  leaves  us  altogether  uncertain  what  the 
prophets  themselves  believed,  and  what  work  they 
wrought  for  God  in  their  own  age.  All  this  uncertainty 
disappears  when  we  read  the  words  of  the  prophets  in 
their  natural  sense.  The  teaching  of  Isaiah,  the  greater 
part  of  which  has  now  fallen  under  our  survey,  is  the 
very  reverse  of  unintelligible,  if  we  consent  to  under- 
stand it  by  the  plain  rules  of  ordinary  human  speech, 
and  in  connection  with  the  life  of  his  own  age.  "We 
do  not  need  to  carry  with  us  to  the  study  of  the  prophet 
any  formulated  principles  of  prophetic  interpretation ; 
the  true  meaning  of  his  words  unfolds  itself  clearly 
enough  as  soon  as  we  realise  the  historical  surroundings 
of  his  ministry,  and  the  principles  of  spiritual  faith,  or, 
in  other  words,  the  conception  of  Jehovah  and  the  laws 
of  His  working,  which  dominated  all  Isaiah's  life.  The 
kingship  of  Jehovah,  the  holy  majesty  of  the  one  true 
God,  the  eternal  validity  of  His  law  of  righteousness, 
the  certainty  that  His  cause  on  earth  is  imperishable 
and  must  triumph  over  all  the  wrath  of  man,  that  His 
word  of  grace  cannot  be  without  avail,  and  that  the 


LECT.  VIII. 


OF  PROPHECY,       '  341 


community  of  His  grace  is  the  one  thing  on  earth  that 
cannot  be  brought  to  nought, — these  are  the  spiritual 
certainties  the  possession  of  which  constituted  Isaiah  a 
true  prophet.  Everything  else  in  his  teaching  is  nothing 
more  than  an  attempt  to  give  these  principles  concrete 
shape  and  tangible  form  in  relation  to  the  problems  of 
his  own  day.  The  practical  lessons  which  he  drew  from 
them  for  the  conduct  of  Israel  w^ere  in  all  respects 
absolutely  justified.  At  every  point  his  insight  into  the 
actual  position  of  affairs,  his  judgment  on  the  sin  of 
Judah  and  the  right  path  of  amendment,  his  perception 
of  the  true  sources  of  danger  and  the  true  way  of 
deliverance,  had  that  certainty  and  clear  decisiveness 
which  belong  only  to  a  vision  purged  from  the  delusions 
of  sense  by  communion  with  things  eternal  and  in- 
visible. But  when  he  embodied  his  faith  and  hope  in 
concrete  pictures  of  the  future,  these  pictures  were,  from 
the  necessity  of  the  case,  not  literal  forecasts  of  history, 
but  poetic  and  ideal  constructions.  Their  very  object 
was  to  gather  up  the  laws  of  God's  working  into  a  single 
dramatic  action, — to  present  in  one  image,  and  within  the 
limited  scene  of  action  that  lay  before  the  Hebrews,  the 
operation  of  tliose  divine  forces  of  which  Isaiah  had 
only  apprehended  the  simplest  elements,  and  which 
since  his  day  have  expanded  themselves,  in  new  ^nd  more 
complex  workings,  through  all  the  widening  cycles  of 
history.  In  such  dramatic  pictures  it  is  only  artistic  or 
poetical  truth  that  can  be  looked  for.  The  insight  of 
the  prophet,  like  that  of  the  unprophetic  dramatist,  vin- 


342  THE  FULFILMENT  lect.  viii. 

dicates  itself  in  the  delineation  of  true  motives, — in  the 
representation  of  the  actual  forces  that  rule  the  evolu- 
tion of  human  affairs, — not  in  the  exact  reproduction  of 
any  one  stage  of  past  or  future  history.  Actual  history, 
as  we  know,  is  far  too  complex  a  thing  to  make  it 
possible  to  isolate  any  one  part  of  its  action  and  de- 
lineate it  literally  in  perfectly  dramatic  form-;  and  just 
as  every  drama  of  human  life  maintains  its  ideal  truth 
and  perfection,  as  an  exhibition  of  historical  motives, 
only  by  abstracting  from  many  things  that  the  literal 
historian  must  take  account  of,  so  the  drama  of  divine 
salvation,  as  it  is  set  forth  by  the  prophets,  gives  a 
just  and  comprehensive  image  of  God's  working  only  by 
gathering  into  one  focus  what  is  actually  spread  over 
the  course  of  long  ages,  and  picturing  the  realisation  of 
the  divine  plan  as  completed  in  relation  to  a  single 
historical  crisis. 

The  supreme  art  with  which  the  great  prophets  of 
Israel  apply  these  laws  of  poetic  or  ideal  truth  to  the 
dramatic  representation  of  the  divine  motives  that 
govern  the  history  of  Israel  was  no  doubt  in  great 
measure  the  unconscious  and  childlike  art  of  an  age  in 
which  all  lofty  thought  was  still  essentially  poetical,  and 
the  reason  was  not  yet  divorced  from  the  imagination. 
And  yet  I  think  it  is  plain  from  the  very  freedom  with 
which  Isaiah  recasts  the  details  of  his  predictions  from 
time  to  time, — adapting  them  to  new  circumstances,  in- 
troducing fresh  historical  or  poetic  motives,  and  cancel- 
ling obsolete  features  in  his  older  imagery, — that  he  him- 


LECT.  VIII.  OF  PROPHECY.  343 

self  drew  a  clear  distinction  iDetween  mere  accidental 
and  dramatic  details,  which  he  knew  might  be  modified 
or  wholly  superseded  by  the  march  of  history,  and  the 
unchanging  principles  of  faith,  which  he  received  as  a 
direct  revelation  of  Jehovah  Himself,  and  knew  to  be 
eternal  and  invariable  truth.  Jehovah  and  Jehovah's 
purpose  were  absolute  and  immutable.  Through  all  the 
variations  of  history  He  was  the  true  asylum  of  His 
people,  and  in  Him  the  victory  of  faith  over  the  world 
was  assured.  The  proof  tliat  this  faith  was  true  and  all- 
sufficient  was  not  dependent  on  the  completeness  or 
finality  of  the  divine  manifestation  that  vindicated  it 
in  any  one  crisis  of  history.  Isaiah's  faith  was  already 
victorious  over  the  world,  and  had  proved  itself  a  source 
of  invincible  steadfastness,  of  peace  and  joy  which  the 
world  could  not  take  away,  when  it  raised  him  high 
above  the  terrors  and  miseries  of  the  present,  and  filled 
his  mouth  with  triumphant  praises  of  Jehovah's  salva- 
tion in  the  depth  of  Judah's  anguish  and  abasement. 
There  was  no  self-delusion  in  the  confidence  with  which 
he  proclaimed  Jehovah's  victory  amidst  the  crash  of  the 
Palestinian  cities  and  the  advance  of  Sennacherib  from 
conquest  to  conquest.  For,  though  the  victory  of  divine 
righteousness  came  not  at  once  in  that  complete  and 
final  form  which  Isaiah  pictured,  it  was  none  the  less  a 
real  victory.  When  the  storm  rolled  away,  the  word  of 
Jehovah  and  the  community  of  the  faith  of  Jehovah 
still  remained  established  on  Mount  Zion,  a  pledge  of 
better  things  to  come,  a  living  proof  that  Jehovah's 


344  THE  INVASION  lect.  viii. 

kingdom  ruletli  over  all,  and  that  tliough  His  grace 
tarry  long  it  can  never  come  to  nought,  and  must  yet  go 
forth  triumphant  to  all  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

When  we  learn  to  seek  the  true  significance  of  the 
work  of  the  prophets,  not  in  the  variable  details  of  their 
predictions,  but  in  the  principles  of  faith  which  are  com- 
mon to  all  spiritual  religion,  and  differ  from  the  faith 
of  the  New  Testament  only  as  the  unexpanded  germ 
differs  from  the  full  growth,  we  see  also  that  the  com- 
plete proof  of  their  divine  mission  can  only  be  found  in 
the  efficacy  of  their  work  towards  the  maintenance  and 
progressive  growth  of  the  community  of  spiritual  faith. 
It  is  the  mark  of  God's  word  that  it  does  not  return  to 
Him  void,  that  in  every  generation  it  is  not  only  true 
but  fruitful,  that  by  its  instrumentality  things  spiritual 
and  eternal  become  a  power  on  earth,  and  an  efficient 
factor  in  human  history.  Thus  we  have  seen  how  the 
ministry  of  Elijah  was  taken  up  and  continued  by  Amos, 
how  the  word  of  Amos  and  Hosea,  despised  and  rejected 
by  the  men  of  Ephraim,  yet  formed  the  basis  of  the 
teaching  of  the  Judeean  prophets,  Isaiah  and  Micah. 
But  it  was  the  special  privilege  of  Isaiah  that,  unlike 
liis  immediate  predecessors,  he  was  permitted  to  enter 
in  no  small  degree  into  the  fruit  of  his  own  labours,  and 
that  the  patient  endurance  of  forty  years  was  at  last 
crowned  by  his  personal  participation  in  a  victory  of 
faith  which  produced  wide  and  lasting  effects  on  the 
subsequent  course  of  Old  Testament  history. 

As  soon  as  he  had  secured  his  position  on  the  coast, 


LECT.  VIII.  OF  JUDAH.  345 

Sennaclierib  felt  himself  free  to  direct  part  of  liis  forces 
against  King  Hezekiah.^  One  by  one  the  fortresses  of 
Judah  yielded  to  the  foe  (2  Kings  xviii.  13).  Sennach- 
erib claims  on  his  monuments  to  have  taken  forty-six 
strong  cities  and  200,000  captives.  "  Your  country,"  says 
Isaiah,^  "  is  desolate,  your  cities  burned  with  fire  :  your 
land,  strangers  devour  it  in  your  presence,  and  it  is  de- 
solate, as  in  the  overthrow  of  Sodom.  And  the  daughter 
of  Zion  is  left  as  a  hut  in  a  vineyard,  as  a  lodge  in  a 
garden  of  cucumbers,  as  a  besieged  city  "  (Isa.  i.  7).  As 
yet,  however,  there  was  no  movement  of  true  repentance. 
There  w^as  indeed  a  great  external  display  of  eagerness 
for  Jehovah's  help  :  solemn  assemblies  were  convened  in 
the  courts  of  the  temple,  the  blood  of  sacrifices  flowed 
in  streams,  the  altars  groaned  under  the  fat  of  fed  beasts, 
and  the  blood-stained  hands  of  Jerusalem's  guilty  rulers 
were  stretched  forth  to  the  sanctuary  with  many  prayers 
(i.  11  scq^).  Against  these  outward  signs  of  devotion, 
accompanied  by  no  thought  of  obedience  and  amend- 
ment, Isaiah  thundered  forth  the  words  of  his  first 
chapter.  Jehovah's  soul  hates  the  vain  religion  of 
empty  formalism.  "  When  ye  spread  forth  your  hands, 
I  will  hide  mine  eyes  from  you  :  yea,  when  ye  make 
many  prayers,  I  will  not  hear :  your  hands  are  full  of 
blood.  Wash  you,  make  you  clean  ;  turn  away  the  evil 
of  your  doings  from  before  mine  ej^es  ;  cease  to  do  evil ; 
learn  to  do  well ;  follow  judgment,  correct  the  oppressor, 
give  justice  to  the  fatherless,  plead  for  the  widow." 
Even  now  it  is  not  too  late  to  repent,     "  If  ye  be  willing 

16 


346  SIEGE  AND  SURRENDER         lect.  viii. 

to  obey,  ye  shall  eat  the  fruit  of  the  land.  But  if  ye  refuse 
and  rebel,  ye  shall  be  devoured  with  the  sword :  for  the 
mouth  of  Jehovah  hath  spoken  it."  Always  practical 
and  direct  in  his  admonitions,  Isaiah  concentrates  his 
indignation  on  the  guilty  rulers,  and  announces  their 
speedy  fall  as  the  first  step  to  restoration  (i.  23  seci^  ; 
one  in  especial,  the  vizier  Shebna,  he  singles  out  by 
name,  and  declares  that  he  shall  be  hurled  from  his  post 
and  dragged  captive  to  a  distant  land  (xxii.  15  scq?). 
Tor  the  moment  these  denunciations  had  no  recognised 
effect;  but  already  Isaiah  felt  himself  master  of  the 
situation,  and  so  sure  was  he  that  the  march  of  events 
would  set  his  party  at  the  helm  of  the  state  that  he 
even  proceeded  to  nominate  "  Jehovah's  servant,"  Elia- 
kim,  the  son  of  Hilkiah,  as  the  successor  of  the  wicked 
minister  (xxii.  20  scq^.  Meantime  a  strong  Assyrian 
column  advanced  against  the  capital,  and  the  affrighted 
inhabitants  found  the  city  in  no  fit  state  of  defence. 
Some  hasty  preparations  were  made,  wdiich  are  graphi- 
cally described  in  Isaiah  xxii.  The  armoury  was  ex- 
amined, the  walls  of  the  city  of  David  were  found  to  be 
full  of  breaches,  and  houses  were  pulled  down  that  the 
material  for  needful  repairs  might  be  quickly  available, 
and  a  store  of  water  w^as  accumulated  in  a  new  reservoir 
between  the  two  walls  at  the  lowest  part  of  the  town. 
But  no  confidence  was  felt  in  these  provisions  ;  there 
was  no  calm  and  deliberate  courage  to  abide  the  issue. 
Many  of  the  nobles  fled  from  the  danger,  (xxii.  8),  and 
those  who  remained  knew  no  better  counsel  than  to 


LECT.  VIII.  OF  JERUSALEM.  347 

drown  their  cares  in  wine,  and  spend  in  riot  the  few 
days  of  respite  that  remained  to  them.  "  Jehovah 
of  hosts  called  to  weeping,  and  to  mourning,  and  to 
baldness,  and  to  girding  with  sackcloth  :  and  behold 
joy  and  gladness,  slaying  oxen  and  killing  sheep,  eating 
flesh  and  drinking  wine :  let  ns  eat  and  drink,  for  to- 
morrow we  die."  !N"evertheless,  it  would  appear  from 
the  monuments  of  Sennacherib  that  Hezekiah  resolved 
to  stand  the  siege  ;  and  it  was  not  till  the  operations  of 
the  assailants  had  made  some  progress  that  he  made 
his  submission  as  recorded  in  2  Kings  xviii.  14.  All 
his  treasures  were  surrendered  to  the  Assyrian,  the 
captive  Padi  of  Ekron  was  delivered  up,  and  large  por- 
tions of  Judcean  territory  were  detached  and  given  over 
to  Philistine  princes  of  the  Assyrian  party ;  but  Heze- 
kiah was  left  upon  his  throne  ;  perhaps,  indeed,  Sen- 
nacherib thought  this  the  safest  course  to  adopt,  as  it  is 
very  clear  from  the  whole  tenor  of  Isaiah's  prophecies 
that  Hezekiah  was  not  a  man  of  much  personal  strength 
of  character,  and  had  during  the  previous  years  been 
little  more  than  a  passive  instrument  in  the  hand  of 
Shebna  and  the  other  princes.  JSTo  doubt,  provision 
was  made  for  a  change  of  administration,  and  the  party 
of  war  was  effectually  superseded  ;  for  a  little  later  we 
actually  find  Eliakim  in  place  of  Shebna  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  dignity  for  which  Isaiah  had  marked  him 
out  (2  Kings  xviii.  37). 

Notwithstanding  the   hard   conditions    laid   upon 
Hezekiah,  these  changes  were,  in  a  certain  sense,  of 


348  DANGERS  OF  lect.  viii. 

good  omen  for  the  future  of  the  state.  The  party  which 
had  so  long  resisted  all  internal  reformation  had  been 
hurled  from  power,  the  delusive  visions  of  a  brilliant 
foreign  policy  were  dissipated,  and  the  influence  of  the 
prophetic  party,  which  took  for  its  maxim  the  reform  of 
religion,  the  abolition  of  idolatry,  and  the  administra- 
tion of  equal  justice  to  rich  and  poor,  was  greater  than 
at  any  previous  moment.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
land  was  exhausted  by  the  disastrous  progress  of  the 
war,  and  by  the  enormous  sacrifices  which  had  been 
demanded  as  the  price  of  peace.  The  Assyrian  yoke 
pressed  more  heavily  than  ever  upon  Judah ;  and, 
thouq-h  the  nation  was  at  lenoth  convinced  that  Isaiali's 
words  were  not  to  be  despised,  the  course  of  events 
which  had  justified  his  foresight  was  by  no  means  cal- 
culated to  inspire  that  buoyancy  and  confidence  of  faith 
which  were  necessary  to  unite  all  classes  in  a  vigorous 
and  successful  effort  to  reorganise  the  shattered  life  of 
the  nation  on  higher  principles  than  had  been  followed 
in  time  past.  True  religion  cannot  live  without  the 
experience  of  grace,  and  as  yet  Jehovah  had  shown 
all  the  severity  of  His  judgment,  but  little  or  nothing 
of  His  forgiving  love.  This  onesidedness,  if  I  may  so 
call  it,  of  the  historical  demonstration  of  His  effective 
sovereignty  in  Israel  was  fraught  with  special  danger 
in  a  community  like  that  of  Judah,  Where  religion 
was  so  intimately  bound  up  with  the  idea  of  nationality, 
the  depression  of  all  the  energies  of  national  life,  in- 
volved in  the  aliject  humiliation  of  the  land  before  the 


LECT.  viii.  THE  SITUA  TION.  349 


Assyrian,  could  not  fail  to  prove  a  great  stumbling- 
block  to  living  faith ;  and  to  this  must  be  added  the 
marked  tendency  to  a  brooding  melancholy  which 
characterises  the  Hebrew  race,  and  in  later  ages  of 
oppression  exercised  a  stifling  influence  on  the  reli- 
gion of  the  Jews,  changing  its  joy  to  gloom,  and  trans- 
forming the  gracious  Jehovah  of  the  prophets  into  the 
pedantic  taskmaster  of  Rabbinical  theology.  When 
we  remember  what  Judaism  became  under  the  Persian 
and  Western  Empires,  or  what  strange  developments 
of  cruel  superstition  and  gloomy  fanaticism  displayed 
themselves  a  generation  after  Isaiah,  in  the  reign  of 
King  Manasseh,  we  can  form  some  conjecture  as  to 
the  dangers  which  true  religion  w^ould  have  run  if 
Sennacherib  had  retired  victorious,  and  Judah  had  been 
left  to  groan  under  a  chastisement  more  grievous  than 
had  ever  before  fallen  on  its  sins.  But  the  divine 
w^isdom  decreed  better  things  for  Jehovah's  land. 

The  submission  of  Hezekiah  and  the  fall  of  Ekron 
had  not  completed  Sennacherib's  task.  Some  strong 
places  on  the  Philistine  frontier  of  Judah,  such  as 
Lachish  and  Libnah,  still  held  out,  and  Tirhakah  was 
not  disabled  by  the  defeat  of  the  army  he  had  sent  to 
the  relief  of  Ekron.  On  the  contrary,  Sennacherib  now 
learned  that  the  king  of  Ethiopia  was  marching  against 
him  in  person  (2  Kings  xix.  9),  and  that  the  most  serious 
part  of  the  campaign  was  yet  to  come.  Under  these 
circumstances  he  began  to  feel  that  he  had  committed 
a  grave  strategical  error  in  allowing  Hezekiah  to  retain 


350  TREA CHER  V  OF  lect.  viii. 

possession  of  the  strongest  fortress  in  tlie  land.  It 
cost  the  treacherous  Assyrian  no  difficulty  to  devise  a 
pretext  for  cancelling  the  newly-ratified  engagement ; 
and,  while  the  siege  of  Lachish  occupied  the  main  army, 
a  great  officer  was  sent  to  Jerusalem  to  charge  Hezekiah 
with  complicity  with  Tirhakah,  and  to  demand  the  sur- 
render of  the  city.  The  troops  that  accompanied  Eab- 
shakeh  wxre  not  sufficient  to  enforce  submission  ;  the 
Assyrians  supposed  that  intimidation  and  big  words 
would  be  sufficient  to  overawe  the  weak  king  of  Judah. 
But  Hezekiah  was  now  in  very  different  hands  from 
those  which  had  conducted  his  previous  conduct.  At 
this  critical  moment  Isaiah  was  the  real  leader  of 
Judah,  and  the  confidence  of  Zion  was  no  lon^^er  set  on 
man  but  on  God.  At  length  the  prophet  knew  that  the 
turning-point  had  come,  the  false  helpers  had  perished, 
and  Jehovah  was  near  to  deliver  His  people.  "  Be  not 
afraid,"  he  said  to  Hezekiah,  "  of  the  words  that  thou 
hast  heard,  wherewith  the  servants  of  the  king  of 
Assyria  have  blasphemed  Me.  Behold,  I  will  send  a 
blast  against  him,  and  he  shall  hear  a  rumour  and  return 
to  his  own  land,  and  I  will  cause  him  to  fall  by  the 
sword  in  his  own  land."  Against  such  confidence  the 
menaces  of  Eabshakeh  were  of  no  avail.  The  populace, 
which  he  hoped  to  enlist  on  his  side,  stood  firm  by 
Hezekiah  and  Isaiah,  and  he  returned  to  his  master 
without  accomplishing  anything.^ 

Hezekiah's   refusal  was  of  course  equivalent  to  a 
renewed  declaration  of  war.     But  Sennacherib's  hands 


LECT.  VIII.  THE  ASSYRIAN.  351 

were  too  full  in  the  quarter  where  he  awaited  the 
advance  of  Tirhakah  to  allow  him  at  once  to  detach  a 
force  sufficient  for  the  reduction  of  a  great  city  like 
Jerusalem.  Again  he  had  recourse  to  menaces,  and 
again  Isaiah  resj^onded  in  tones  of  confident  assurance 
and  scornful  indignation  against  the  presumption  that 
dared  to  challenge  Jehovah's  might.  ''  The  virgin  the 
daughter  of  Zion  hath  despised  thee,  and  laughed  thee 
to  scorn  ;  the  daughter  of  Jerusalem  hath  shaken  her 
head  at  thee.  Whom  hast  thou  reproached  and  blas- 
phemed ?  and  against  whom  hast  thou  exalted  thy 
voice,  and  lifted  up  thine  eyes  on  high  ?  even  against 
the  Holy  One  of  Israel."  The  Assyrian  boasts  that  his 
own  power  has  subdued  the  nations.  ''•  JSTay,"  says  Isaiah, 
"hast  thou  not  heard  that  it  was  I  that  ordained  it 
from  afar,  and  that  of  old  I  formed  it  ?  now  have  I 
brought  it  to  pass,  that  tliou  shouldest  lay  waste  fenced 
cities  into  ruinous  heaps.  Therefore  their  inhabitants 
were  of  small  power,  they  were  dismayed  and  con- 
founded :  they  were  as  the  grass  of  the  field  or  the  green 
herb,  like  grass  on  the  housetops  and  blasted  corn.  Thy 
rising  up  and  thy  sitting  down  are  before  Me  ;  ^  I  know 
thy  going  out  and  thy  coming  in,  and  thy  rage  against 
Me.  Because  thy  rage  against  Me  and  thy  tumult  is 
come  up  unto  Mine  ears,  I  will  put  My  hook  in  thy 
nose,  and  My  bridle  in  thy  lips,  and  I  will  turn  •  thee 
back  by  the  way  in  which  thou  camest.  .  .  .  And  the 
remnant  that  is  escaped  of  the  house  of  Judah  shall 
again  take  root  downward  and  bear  fruit  upward  :  for 


352  RE  TREA  T  OF  lect.  vii  i. 

out  of  Jerusalem  shall  go  forth  a  remnant,  and  they 
that  are  escaped  out  of  Mount  Zion :  the  zeal  of 
Jehovah  of  hosts  shall  do  this"  (2  Kings  xix.  21  seq^.-, 
Isa.  xxxvii.).  Isaiah's  confidence  was  not  misplaced. 
A  great  and  sudden  calamity  overwhelmed  the  army  of 
Sennacherib  (2  Kings  xix.  35),  and  he  was  compelled  to 
return  to  his  own  land,  leaving  Jerusalem  unmolested.^^ 
Of  the  details  of  the  catastrophe,  which  the  Bible  nar- 
rative is  content  to  characterise  as  the  act  of  God,  the 
Assyrian  monuments  contain  no  record,  because  the 
issue  of  the  campaign  gave  them  nothing  to  boast  of ; 
but  an  Egyptian  account  preserved  by  Herodotus 
(ii.  141),  though  full  of  fabulous  circumstances,  shows 
that  in  Egypt  as  well  as  in  Judaea  it  was  recognised  as 
a  direct  intervention  of  divine  power.  The  disaster  did 
not  break  the  power  of  the  Great  King,  who  continued  to 
reign  for  twenty  years,  and  waged  many  other  victorious 
wars.  But  none  the  less  it  must  have  been  a  very 
grave  blow,  the  effects  of  which  were  felt  throughout 
the  empire,  and  permanently  modified  the  imperial 
policy  ;  for  in  tlie  following  year  Chaldsea  was  again 
in  revolt,  and  to  the  end  of  his  reign  Sennacherib  never 
renewed  his  attack  on  Judah. 

The  retreat  of  the  Assyrian  was  welcomed  at  Jeru- 
salem with  an  outburst  of  triumphant  joy,  the  ex- 
pression of  which  may  be  sought  with  great  probability 
in  more  than  one  of  the  hymns  of  the  Psalter,  especially 
in  Psalm  xlvi.  The  deliverance  was  Jehovah's  work. 
He  had  returned  to  His  people  as  in  the  days  of  old,  and 


LECT.  VIII.  SENNACHERIB.  353 

the  burden  of  Juclah's  song  of  tlianksgiving  was, 
"  Jehovah  of  hosts  is  with  us,  the  God  of  Israel  is  our 
high  tower."  And  the  God  who  had  wrought  such 
great  things  for  His  people  was  not  the  Jehovah  of  the 
corrupt  popular  worship,  for  He  had  refused  to  hear  the 
prayers  of  the  adversaries  of  the  prophet,  but  the  God 
of  Isaiah,  whose  name  or  manifestation  the  prophet  had 
seen  afar  off  drawinq-  near  in  burninfj  wrath  and  thick 
rising  smoke,  his  lips  full  of  angry  foam  and  his  tongue 
like  a  devourinc^  fire,  and  his  breath  like  an  overflowimr 
torrent  reaching  even  to  the  neck,  to  sift  the  nations  in 
the  sieve  of  destruction,  to  bridle  the  jaws  of  peoples, 
and  turn  them  aside  from  their  course  (xxx.  27  scq^. 
The  eyes  of  the  prophet  had  seen  the  salvation  for 
which  he  had  been  waiting  through  so  many  weary 
years  ;  the  demonstration  of  Jehovah's  kingship  was  the 
public  victory  of  Isaiah's  faith,  and  the  word  of  spiritual 
prophecy,  which  from  the  days  of  Amos  downward  had 
been  no  more  than  the  ineffective  protest  of  a  small 
minority,  had  now  vindicated  its  claim  to  be  taken  by 
king  and  people  as  an  authoritative  exposition  of  the 
character  and  will  of  the  God  of  Israel. 

The  acknowledged  victory  of  Isaiah's  doctrine  con- 
tained an  immediate  summons  to  a  practical  work  of 
reformation,  and  prescribed  the  rules  to  be  followed  in 
the  reconstitution  of  the  sliattered  fabric  of  the  state, 
which  was  the  first  concern  of  the  government  when 
the  invader  eyacuated  the  land.  It  would  be  of  the 
highest  interest  to  know  in  full  detail  how  Hezekiah 


354  LAST  WORDS  lect.  viii. 

addressed  himself  to  tliis  task,  and  how  Isaiah  employed 
his  well-won  influence  in  the  direction  of  the  Avork. 
Unfortunately  the  history  of  the  kings  of  Judah  is 
almost  wholly  silent  as  to  the  last  years  of  Hezekiah, 
and  we  have  no  prophecy  of  Isaiah  which  serves  to  fill 
up  the  blank.  The  record  of  the  prophet's  work  closes 
with  the  triumphant  strains  of  the  thirty-third  chapter, 
written  perhaps  before  the  catastrophe  of  Sennacherib, 
but  after  the  result  was  already  a  prophetic  certainty, 
because  Judah  had  at  length  bent  its  heart  to  obedience 
to  Jehovah's  word.  In  this  most  beautiful  of  all  Isaiah's 
discourses  the  long  conflict  of  Israel's  sin  with  Jehovah's 
righteousness  is  left  behind  ;  peace,  forgiveness,  and  holy 
joy  breathe  in  every  verse,  and  the  dark  colours  of  pre- 
sent and  past  distress  serve  only  as  a  foil  to  the  assured 
felicity  that  is  ready  to  dawn  on  Jehovah's  land.  "  Ila, 
thou  that  spoilest  and  thou  wast  not  spoiled,  that  robbest 
and  they  robbed  not  thee  ;  when  thou  makest  an  end  of 
spoiling  thou  shalt  be  spoiled  ;  when  thou  ceasest  to  rob 
they  shall  rob  thee.  Jehovah,  be  gracious  unto  ns  ;  we 
have  waited  for  Thee  :  be  Thou  our  arm  every  morning, 
our  victory  also  in  the  time  of  trouble.  At  the  noise  of 
the  tumult  the  peoples  fled  ;  at  the  lifting  up  of  Thyself 
the  nations  are  scattered.  .  .  .  Jehovah  is  exalted  ;  for 
He  dwelleth  on  high  :  He  hath  liUed  Zion  with  judg- 
ment and  righteousness.  Then  shall  there  be  stability 
of  thy  seasons,  plenitude  of  victory,  wisdom,  and  know- 
ledge :  the  fear  of  Jehovah  shall  be  tliy  treasure.  .  .  . 
Hear,  ye  that  are  afar  off,  what  I  have  done;  ancl,  ye  that 


LECT.  VIII.  OF  ISAIAH.  355 

are  near,  acknowledge  my  might.  The  sinners  in  Zion 
are  afraid  ;  fearfulness  hath  surprised  the  godless  men. 
AVho  among  us  shall  dwell  with  devouring  fire?  who 
shall  dwell  Vv^ith  everlasting  burnings  ?  He  that  walketh 
in  righteousness  and  speaketh  upright  things  ;  he  that 
despiseth  the  gain  of  oppressions,  that  shaketh  his  hands 
from  holding  of  bribes,  that  stoppeth  his  ears  from 
hearing  of  blood  and  shutteth  his  eyes  from  looking  on 
evil ;  he  shall  dwell  on  high  :  his  place  of  defence  shall 
be  the  munitions  of  rocks  :  his  bread  shall  be  given  him  ; 
his  water  shall  be  sure.  Thine  eyes  shall  behold  the 
King  in  His  beauty :  they  shall  see  a  land  that  reaches 
far.  Thy  heart  shall  muse  on  the  past  terror  ;  where  is 
he  that  inscribed  and  weighed  the  tribute  ?  where  is  lie 
that  counted  the  towers  ?  .  .  .  Look  upon  Zion,  the  city 
of  our  solemn  feasts  :  thine  eyes  shall  see  Jerusalem  a 
peaceful  habitation,  a  tent  that  shall  never  be  removed. 
.  .  .  For  there  shall  Jehovah  sit  in  glory  for  us  ;  but 
the  place  of  broad  rivers  and  streams  " — that  is,  the  place 
of  the  overflowing  empires  of  the  Tigris  and  the  Nile — 
"  no  galley  with  oars  shall  go  therein,  neither  shall  gallant 
ship  pass  thereb}^  For  Jehovah  is  our  Judge,  Jehovah 
is  our  Lawgiver,  Jehovah  is  our  King  ;  He  will  save 
us.  .  .  .  And  the  inhabitant  shall  not  say,  I  am  sick  : 
the  people  that  dwell  therein  are  forgiven  their  iniquity." 
And  so  Jehovah's  w^ord  to  Isaiah  ends,  as  it  had  begun, 
with  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  "  Lo,  this  hath  touched  thy 
lips ;  and  thine  iniquity  is  taken  away,  and  thy  sin 
purged"  (vi.  7).     "The  people  that  dwell  therein  are 


J56  LAST  WORDS  lect.  viii. 


forgiven  their  iniquity."  The  goal  of  jjrophetic  religion 
is  reached  when  Israel,  as  a  nation,  is  brought  nigh  to 
God  in  the  same  assurance  of  forgiveness,  the  same 
freedom  of  access  to  His  supreme  holiness,  the  same  joy- 
ful obedience  to  His  moral  kingship,  that  made  Isaiah  a 
true  prophet,  and  sustained  his  courage  and  his  faith 
tlirough  the  long  years  of  Israel's  rebellion  and  chastise- 
ment. 

The  culminating  points  of  the  world's  history  are 
not  always  those  whicli  are  inscribed  in  boldest  charac- 
ters in  the  common  records  of  mankind.  The  greatest 
event  of  all  history,  the  crucifixion  and  resurrection  of 
Jesus,  has  scarcely  left  a  trace  in  the  chronicles  of  the 
Eoman  empire,  and  in  like  manner  only  a  faint  and 
distorted  echo  of  the  retreat  of  Sennacherib  is  heard 
beyond  the  narrow  field  of  JudcTan  literature.  The 
mere  political  historian  of  antiquity  might  almost  refuse 
a  place  in  his  pages  to  a  reverse  which  barely  produced 
a  momentary  interruption  in  the  victorious  progress  of 
the  Assyrian  monarchy.  And  yet  the  event,  so  incon- 
siderable in  its  outward  consequences,  has  had  more 
influence  on  the  life  of  subsequent  generations  than  all 
the  conquests  of  Assyrian  kings ;  for  it  assured  the  per- 
manent vitality  of  that  religion  which  was  the  cradle  of 
Christianity.  When  Sennacherib's  messenger  approached 
the  walls  of  Jerusalem  with  the  summons  of  surrender, 
the  fate  of  the  new  world,  which  lay  in  germ  in  Isaiah's 
teachinc:,  seemed  to  tremble  in  the  balance.  "The 
children  were  come  to  the  birth,  and  there  was  not 


LECT.  VIII,  OF  ISAIAH.  357 

strength  to  bring  forth  "  (Isa.  xxxvii.  3).  Jehovah  sup- 
plied the  lacking  strength,  and  the  new  community  of 
prophetic  faith  came  forth  from  the  birth -throes  of 
Zion  (comp.  Micah  v.  3).  But  very  soon  it  became 
manifest  that  this  new  born  community  of  grace,  the 
holy  remnant,  the  fresh  offshoot  of  the  decaying  stock 
of  Israel,  was  not  identical  with  the  political  state  of 
Judah.  Isaiah  himself  was  far  from  suspecting  tliis 
truth.  All  his  prophecies  are  shaped  by  the  assumption 
that  in  the  future,  as  in  the  past,  the  people  of  Jehovah 
and  the  subjects  of  the  Davidic  monarchy  must  continue 
to  be  interchangeable  ideas.  The  vindication  of  Jeho- 
vah's sovereignty  was  in  his  mind  inseparable  from 
such  a  national  conversion  as  should  stamp  the  impress 
of  Jehovah's  holiness  on  all  the  institutions  of  national 
life.  This  point  of  view  is  as  plainly  dominant  in  his 
latest  prophecy  as  in  his  earliest  discourses.  The  rulers  of 
Zion,  who  dwell  in  the  full  blaze  of  Jehovah's  consuming 
holiness,  must  be  men  whose  hands  are  clear  of  bribes, 
who  refuse  to  hear  suggestions  of  crime, »or  to  open  their 
eyes  to  plans  of  iniquity.  The  salvation  of  God's  people 
is  manifested  in  the  stability  of  national  welfare,  the 
rec^ular  succession  of  the  natural  seasons  and  unbroken 
victory  going  side  by  side  with  Avisdom  and  knowledge 
and  the  fear  of  Jehovah.  Hence  the  prophetic  ideal 
of  a  redeemed  nation  contained,  as  has  been  already 
indicated,  the  outlines  of  a  scheme  for  the  reorganisation 
of  national  life,  but  of  a  scheme  which,  even  at  the  out- 
set, was  found  to  be  encompassed  with  unsurmountable 


358  THE  REFORMS  lect.  viii. 


practical  difficulties.  A  radical  renovation  of  society 
cannot  be  effected  through  the  organs  of  national  action, 
for  a  nation  has  no  personal  identity  or  invariable  fixity 
of  purpose  ;  and  the  momentary  impression  of  the  great 
deliverance,  when,  for  an  instant,  all  Israel  seemed  to 
bend  as  one  man  before  Jehovah's  will,  could  not  secure 
a  permanent  and  unfailing  concentration  of  every  class, 
in  its  own  place  in  societ}^  towards  the  realisation  of  the 
prophetic  ideal.  The  effective  regeneration  of  society,  as 
the  gospel  teaches  us,  must  necessarily  begin  with  the 
individual  heart,  and  the  true  analogy  of  the  workings 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  is  not  found  in  the  forms  of 
earthly  government,  but  in  the  hidden  operations  of  a 
pervading  leaven.  Such  a  leaven  did  indeed  exist  in 
Isaiah's  day,  but  it  was  not  co-extensive  with  the  nation 
of  Judali ;  it  consisted  of  the  comparatively  few  whose 
adherence  to  spiritual  religion  was  an  affair  of  settled 
conviction,  and  not  a  passing  impulse  determined  by  one 
of  those  rare  junctures  when  the  power  of  spiritual  things 
shovvs  itself  for  an  instant  with  all  the  palpable  reality 
of  a  phenomenon  of  sense.  It  is  not  the  law  of  divine 
providence  that  such  visible  manifestations  of  the  hand 
of  God,  vouchsafed  as  they  are  only  in  supreme  crises, 
should  continue  permanently,  and  supersede  the  exercise 
of  the  faith  that  endures  as  seeing  that  wdiicli  is  invis- 
ible ;  and  nothing  short  of  a  continued  miracle  could 
have  held  the  nation  as  a  nation  in  that  frame  of  repent- 
ance and  new  obedience  which  seemed  to  be  universal 
\i\  the  first  burst  of  exultation  at  Jehovah's  victorv. 


LECT.  VIII.  OF  HEZEKIAH.  359 

The  reforms  ^vliicli  Hezekiali  M'as  able  to  in- 
troduce toiiclied  only  the  surface  of  national  life ;  a 
radical  amendment  of  social  life,  even  as  regarded  the 
administration  of  equal  and  impartial  justice,  and  the 
establishment  of  kindlier  relations  between  the  rich  and 
poor, — points  whicli  Isaiah  had  always  emphasised  as 
fundamental, — lay  altogether  beyond  their  scope.  In 
this  respect  the  utmost  that  was  accomplished  was  a 
temporary  mitigation  of  crying  abuses.  It  was  less 
difficult  to  work  a  change  in  those  parts  of  the  visible 
ordinances  of  religion  whicli  were  plainly  inconsistent 
with  prophetic  teaching.  The  abolition  of  idolatry, 
or  at  least  of  its  more  public  and  flagrant  manifestations, 
was  undoubtedly  attempted  ;  indeed  we  might  be  led 
to  infer  from  the  prominence  assigned  to  Hezekiah's 
religious  reforms  in  the  history  of  Kings  that  some 
movement  in  this  direction  may  have  been  made  in  the 
earlier  part  of  his  reign.  But  it  is  quite  clear  from  the 
prophecies  of  Isaiah  that  TIezekiah  was  wholly  in  the 
hands  of  the  adversaries  of  the  prophetic  party  till  the 
last  period  of  the  Assyrian  war  ;  not  till  after  his  first 
surrender  and  the  discomfiture  of  the  politicians  of 
whom  Shebna  was  the  leader  could  it  be  said  of 
Hezekiah,  in  the  language  of  2  Kings  xviii,  5,  G,  that 
he  trusted  in  Jehovah  and  clave  to  Him.  Even  in  the 
discourses  of  the  reign  of  Sennacherib  Isaiah  speaks  of 
the  abolition  of  the  idols  as  a  thing  still  in  the  future 
(xxx.  22  ;  xxxi.  7),  so  that  any  earlier  work  of  reforma- 
tion, such  as  may  possibly  have  been  suggested  by  the 


360  REFORM  OF  lect.  viii. 


lesson  of  Samaria's  fall,  as  it  was  enforced  by  the  con- 
temporary prophecies  of  Isaiah  and  Micah,  can  at  best 
have  been  only  imperfect  and  transitory.  The  character 
which  Hezekiah  bears  in  history  and  the  reforms  con- 
nected with  his  name  really  refer  to  the  years  that 
followed  the  victory  of  Isaiah. 

Isaiah  had  never  ceased  to  declare  that  the  rejection 
of  the  idols  must  be  one  of  the  first-fruits  of  Judah's 
repentance,  but  he  did  not  attempt  to  indicate  a  scheme 
of  reformed  worship  to  tahe  their  place.  The  idols 
shall  bo  cast  away  when  the  eyes  of  the  nation  are 
turned  to  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  and  His  voice  is 
heard  behind  them  to  guide  all  their  goings.  To  Isaiah, 
in  truth,  ritual  worship  had  very  little  significance. 
He  certainly  did  not  distinctly  look  forward  to  its  com- 
plete abolition,  for  he  speaks  of  the  Egyptians  as  serv- 
ing Jehovah  by  sacrifice,  and  even  of  altar  and  macccba, 
such  as  characterised  the  common  provincial  shrines 
of  Judah,  erected  within  Egypt  in  token  of  homage  to 
Jehovah  (xix.  19,  21).  And  in  like  manner  the  solemn 
feasts  at  Jerusalem — from  which  a  fi^-ure  is  derived  in 
XXX.  29 — are  assumed  to  continue  in  the  days  of  Israel's 
redemption  (xxxiii.  20).  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  not 
only  represents  the  sacrifice  of  guilty  hands  as  unaccept- 
able to  Jehovah  (chap,  i.),  but  there  is  never  the  slightest 
indication  that  repentance  and  obedience  require  to  be 
embodied  in  acts  of  ritual  worship  in  order  to  find 
acceptance  with  God.  There  is  not  a  line  in  all  the 
prophecies  that  have  come  before  us  which  gives  the 


LECT.  VIII.  WORSHIP.  361 

slightest  weight  to  priesthood  or  sacrifice.  ISTay,  in 
xvii.  8  the  altars  as  well  as  the  asherim  and  the  sun- 
pillars  appear  as  things  of  man's  making  that  come 
hetween  Israel  and  its  God.  It  is  not  the  temple  that 
is  the  glory  of  the  new  Jerusalem  and  the  seat  of 
Jehovah's  presence ;  the  true  meaning  of  Jehovah's 
residence  on  Zion  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  capital  is  the 
centre  of  His  effectual  kingship  in  Judah  ;  and  even 
the  name  of  the  "  hearth  of  God,"  which  Isaiah  bestows 
on  the  holy  city,  and  not  on  the  sanctuary  alone,  has 
rather  reference  to  the  consuminsr  fire  of  the  divine 
holiness  than  to  altar  or  sacrificial  flame.  If  Jerusalem 
appears  to  Isaiah  as  the  centre  of  that  sanctity  which 
belongs  to  all  Jehovah's  "  holy  mountain  land,"  and  as 
the  point  of  assembly  where  His  people  meet  before 
Him,  the  meaning  of  this  conception  is  that  in  Jeru- 
salem Jehovah  holds  His  kingly  court,  and  that  from 
Zion  His  prophetic  word  goes  forth  to  guide  His  subjects. 
Thus,  while  Isaiah  insists  on  the  removal  from  religion 
of  things  that  hide  the  true  character  of  Jehovah,  he 
has  no  positive  views  as  to  the  institution  of  a  reformed 
Avorship :  the  positive  task  on  which  he  always  laj^s 
stress  is  the  purification  of  the  organs  of  judgment  and 
administration,  so  that  the  leaders  of  the  state  may 
be  able  to  dwell  safely  in  the  consuming  fire  of 
Jehovah's  holiness. 

Isaiah  had  looked  for  the  spontaneous  repudiation 
of  the  idols  in  an  impulse  of  national  repentance  which 
needed  no  official  decree  to  guide  it ;  the  reforms  of 


3G2  ABOLITION  OF  lect.  viii. 

Ilezekiali  were  the  act  of  the  government  in  a  nation 
not  wholly  converted  to  Jehovah  ;  and,  in  the  absence 
of  that  pure  spontaneity  which  the  prophets  regard  as 
the  true  spring  of  right  religion,  they  must  have  been 
directed  to  an  external  aim,  the  establishment  of  a  fixed 
type  of  official  worship.  The  attempt  was  confronted 
from  the  first  by  a  formidable  difficulty  :  the  idols,  the 
sun-pillars,  the  asherim,  tlie  sacred  trees,  and  all  the 
other  pagan  or  half-pagan  symbols,  so  plainly  inconsist- 
ent with  the  prophetic  faith,  were  of  the  very  substance 
of  Israel's  worship  in  the  popular  sanctuaries.  So  much 
was  this  the  case  that  Isaiah,  as  we  have  just  seen,  was 
practically  indifferent  to  all  forms  of  cult  us  :  the  social 
exercises  of  his  faith  as  described  in  Isa.  viii.  IG  sc^.  were 
altogether  of  another  kind,  anticipating  the  worship  of 
the  New  Testament  Church.  Hezekiah  could  not  pro- 
pose to  himself,  and  Isaiah  had  never  formally  contem- 
plated, the  entire  abolition  of  the  traditional  ritual ;  and 
yet  it  was  scarcely  possible  to  introduce  any  effective 
reform  without  a  great  limitation,  an  almost  radical 
subversion,  of  the  ancient  shrines.  But  at  this  point 
the  zeal  of  Hezekiah  was  powerfully  aided,  and  the 
plan  of  reformation  practically  determined,  by  the  fact 
that  almost  every  considerable  provincial  town  of  Judah 
had  been  ruined  by  the  armies  of  Sennacherib.  The 
local  Baalim  of  the  high  places  had  been  of  no  avail  to 
save  their  worshippers  ;  their  shrines  were  burned  or 
laid  waste,  and  in  many  cases,  no  doubt,  in  accordance 
with  the  common  practice  of  the  Assyrians,  the  idols 


LECT.  VIII.  THE  HIGH  PLACES.  363 

Lad  been  carried  a^yay  to  grace  tlie  triumph  of  Senna- 
cherib. This  destruction  of  the  strongholds  and  sanc- 
tuaries of  the  land  corresponded  in  the  most  marked 
way  with  the  predictions  of  Micah,  the  influence  of 
which  on  the  conduct  of  Ilezekiah  is  expressly  attested 
in  the  book  of  Jeremiah.  Micah,  it  is  true,  had  not 
exempted  the  fortress  and  sanctuary  of  Zion  from  the 
universal  destruction  ;  his  picture  of  the  future  left  no 
room  for  any  vestige  of  the  ancient  ritual  ;  to  him  the 
Zion  of  the  latter  days  is  a  religious  centre,  not  as  a 
place  of  worship,  but  as  the  seat  of  Jehovah's  throne 
and  of  a  revelation  of  law  and  judgment.  But  for  the 
mass  of  the  people  the  temple  of  Zion  had  received  a 
new  importance  in  connection  with  the  effectual  proof 
of  the  inviolability  of  Jehovah's  holy  mountain.  They 
were  unable  to  separate  the  idea  of  holiness  from  its 
traditional  association  with  observances  of  ritual  service, 
and  the  natural  or  even  inevitable  interpretation  of  the 
lesson  written  on  the  blackened  ruins  of  the  provincial 
holy  places  was  that  the  ''  mountain  of  the  house  "  was 
the  true  sanctuary  of  Judah's  worship.  ^^  Thus  the 
scheme  of  Hezekiah  necessarily  assumed,  v>^ith  more  or 
less  explicitness,  the  form  of  a  superseding  of  the  pro- 
vincial shrines  and  the  centralisation  of  worship  in  the 
temple  of  Jerusalem,  purged  from  heathenish  corrup- 
tions. At  first  this  change  would  not  appear  very 
startliug  or  difiicult  to  carry  out,  for  Sennacherib  had 
left  the  provinces  a  desert  (Isa.  i.  7 ;  xxxiii.  8,  9),  and 
his  monuments  aver  that  200,000  of  their  inhabitants 


364  THE  REACTION  lect.  viii. 

were  carried  off  as  slaves.  Juclali  and  Jerusalem  were 
for  the  moment  almost  identical  ideas,  and  the  sphere  of 
Hezekiah's  reforms  was  perhaps  confined  to  the  im- 
mediate vicinity  of  the  capital.  Even  here  there  was 
one  strange  omission  in  his  work.  The  shrines  of 
foreign  deities  which  had  stood  around  Jerusalem  since 
the  days  of  Solomon  were  for  some  reason  left  untouched 
— probably  because  of  privileges  of  worship  that  could 
not  be  refused  to  the  Phoenicians  and  other  aliens,  who 
occupied  in  the  capital  a  quarter  or  suburb  called  the 
Maktesh  (Zeph.  i.  11);  and  in  the  sequel  these  shrines 
exercised  more  inflaence  on  Juda^an  religion  than  they 
had  ever  done  before.^^ 

Thus  the  visible  impulse  of  the  great  victory  of 
Isaiah's  faith  appeared  to  have  exhausted  itself  in  a 
scheme  of  external  reform  which  fell  far  short  of  giving 
full  expression  to  the  spirituality  of  prophetic  teaching, 
and,  carried  out  as  it  was  by  the  authority  of  the  govern- 
ment rather  than  by  the  spontaneous  impulse  of  the 
whole  nation,  was  sure  to  lead  to  the  reaction  that 
always  follows  on  the  enforcement  by  external  authority 
of  principles  not  thoroughly  understood  or  sympathised 
with.  As  the  nation  fell  back  into  the  grooves  of  its 
old  existence,  ancient  customs  began  to  reassert  their 
sway.  The  worship  which  the  prophets  condemned  and 
which  Ilezekiah  had  proscribed  was  too  deeply  inter- 
woven with  all  parts  of  life  to  be  uprooted  by  royal 
decree,  and  the  old  prejudice  of  the  country  folk  against 
the  capital,  so  clearly  apparent  in  Micah,  must  have 


LECT.  VIII.  UNDER  MANASSEH.  3G5 

co-operated  with  superstition  to  bring  about  tlie  strong 
revulsion  against  tlie  new  reforms  which  took  place 
under  Hezekiah's  son,  Manasseh.  A  bloody  struggle 
ensued  between  the  conservative  party  and  the  followers 
of  the  prophets,  and  the  new  king  was  on  the  side  of 
the  reaction.  Perhaps  in  this  struggle  the  motives  of 
the  unpopular  faction  were  less  pure,  as  their  aims  were 
certainly  less  ideal,  than  Isaiah's.  There  were  worldly 
interests  involved  in  the  policy  of  religious  centralisa- 
tion which  claimed  to  represent  the  spiritual  aspirations 
of  the  prophets ;  and  the  priests  of  Jerusalem,  whose 
revenues  and  influence  were  directly  concerned,  were 
at  no  time  the  most  unselfish  of  reformers.  Thus  we 
can  well  suppose  that  the  religious  war  which  ensued 
had  on  both  sides  a  demoralising  tendency  ;  a  contest 
as  to  forms  of  worship  and  ecclesiastico- political  organi- 
sation is  seldom  for  the  advantage  of  spiritual  faith.  No 
great  prophet  arose  as  the  champion  of  Hezekiah's  re- 
forms ;  and  the  one  voice  of  lofty  faith  which  speaks  to 
us  from  these  disastrous  days,  in  the  last  two  chapters  of 
the  book  of  Micah,-^^  is  the  voice  of  a  man  who  belongs  to 
neither  of  the  contending  factions,  and  feels  himself  alone 
in  Judah,  as  Isaiah  had  never  been,  in  a  society  wliere  all 
moral  corruption  is  rampant,  where  justice,  honesty,  and 
truth  are  unknown,  where  the  good  man  is  perished  out 
of  the  earth,  and  there  is  none  upright  among  men, 
where  the  son  dishonoureth  his  father,  and  the  daughter 
riseth  up  against  her  mother,  where  the  nearest  friend 
cannot  be  trusted,  where  a  man  dare  not  speak  freely 


3G6  THE  REACTION  lect.  viii. 

even  to  the  wife  of  his  bosom.  And  yet  in  a  certain 
sense  religious  earnestness  was  deeper  than  before.  The 
reaction  had  brought  back  all  the  old  corruptions,  but 
not  the  old  lightness  of  heart  with  which  Israel  rejoiced 
before  its  God  in  every  holy  place.  The  terrible  experi- 
ences of  the  Assyrian  wars  had  left  behind  them  a 
residuum  of  gloomy  apprehension.  If  Jehovah's  deliver- 
ance was  forgotten  by  the  men  who  no  longer  clave  to 
the  faith  of  Isaiah,  the  terrors  of  his  wrath,  as  they  had 
been  experienced  in  the  ravages  of  Sennacherib  and 
perhaps  in  subsequent  calamities — for  in  Manasseh's 
time  the  Assyrians  again  became  lords  of  the  land — 
still  weighed  upon  the  nation,  and  gave  a  sombre  tinge 
to  all  religion.  In  this  respect  Judah  did  not  stand 
alone.  To  all  the  Palestinian  nations  the  Assyrian 
crisis  had  made  careless  confidence  in  the  help  of  their 
national  deities  a  thing  impossible.  As  life  was  em- 
bittered by  foreign  bondage,  the  darker  aspects  of 
heathenism  became  dominant.  The  wrath  of  the  gods 
seemed  more  real  than  their  favour  ;  atoning  ordinances 
were  multiplied,  human  sacrifices  became  more  frequent, 
the  terror  which  hung  over  all  the  nations  that  groaned 
under  the  Assyrian  yoke  found  habitual  expression  in" 
the  ordinances  of  worship ;  and  it  was  this  aspect  of 
heathenism  that  came  to  the  front  in  Manasseh's  imita- 
tions of  foreign  religion. 

Thus  once  more,  and  within  a  few  years  of  Isaiah's 
great  victory,  the  national  ideal  of  Jehovah  worship  had 
broken  down,  and  the  old  controversy  of  Jehovah  with 


LECT.  VIII.  UNDER  MANASSEH.  367 

His  people  was  renewed,  but  with  other  and  deeper 
issues,  in  the  development  of  which  a  new  race  of 
prophets  Ava^  to  take  part.  So  far  as  appeared  on  the 
surface  of  Juda^an  society  the  results  of  the  Assyrian 
judgment  and  the  prophetic  preaching  that  interpreted 
it  had  been  purely  negative.  The  old  joyous  religion 
of  Israel  had  broken  down,  but  the  faith  of  Isaiah  had 
not  taken  its  place.  The  glad  confidence  in  Jehovah, 
making  it  an  easy  thing  to  obey  His  precepts  and  a 
privilege  to  be  called  by  His  name,  which  Isaiah  had 
continually  set  forth  as  the  right  disposition  of  true 
religion,  was  lost  in  gloomy  superstition.  The  grace  of 
Jehovah,  so  often  manifested  in  the  past  history  of 
Israel,  was  forgotten  (Micah  vi.  4  s<?^.),  and  His  name 
had  become  a  name  of  terror,  not  of  hope.  This  was 
the  true  secret  of  Manasseh's  polytheism.  He  sought 
other  gods,  not  because  Jehovah  was  powerless,  but 
because  he  despaired  of  securing  His  help  (comp.  Jer. 
xliv.  18  ;  Ezek.  viii.  12).  But  beneath  all  this  it  is  not 
difficult  to  see  that  a  real  advance  had  been  made,  and 
that  the  basis  was  laid  for  a  new  development  of 
spiritual  truth  which  should  carry  the  religion  of  Israel 
another  stage  towards  its  goal  in  the  religion  of  Christ. 
The  failure  of  Ilezekiah's  plans  of  reformation  in- 
volved more  than  a  merely  negative  result.  And  it 
did  so  in  two  ways.  In  the  first  place,  it  became 
manifest  that  to  purge  the  religion  of  Judah  from 
heathenish  elements  it  was  necessary  that  the  whole 
notion  of  sacrificial  worship  should  undergo  a  radical 


368  THE  CODE  OF  lect.  viii. 

change.  The  code  of  Deuteronomy,  which  must  be 
regarded  as  in  great  measure  a  product  of  reflection  on 
the  failure  of  Ilezekiah's  measures,  starts  from  the 
observation  that  it  is  impossible  to  get  rid  of  Canaanite 
elements  of  worship  until  sacrifice  and  ritual  observances 
are  confined  to  one  sanctuary,  and  that  this  again  is 
impossible  till  the  old  principle  is  given  up  that  all 
food,  and  especially  every  animal  slain  for  a  feast,  is 
unclean  unless  presented  at  the  altar.  By  dissociating 
the  ideas  of  slaughter  and  sacrifice,  which  till  then  had 
been  absolutely  indistinguishable  and  expressed  by  a 
single  word,  the  law  of  Deuteronomy  revolutionised  the 
religion  of  daily  life,  and  practically  limited  the  sphere 
of  ritual  worship  to  tlie  pilgrimage  feasts  and  other 
occasions  of  special  importance.  This  principle  found 
no  complete  access  to  the  mass  of  the  people  so  long  as 
the  Kingdom  of  Judah  stood  ;  but  it  put  in  a  tangible 
and  easy  shape  at  least  one  aspect  of  the  prophetic 
teaching  that  the  religion  of  ordinary  life  does  not  con- 
sist in  ritual,  but  in  love  to  God  and  obedience  to  Him, 
and  so  prepared  many  in  Israel  to  maintain  their  faith 
in  Jehovah  in  the  approaching  dissolution  of  national 
existence,  when  ritual  service  was  not  merely  restricted 
in  scope  but  altogether  suspended.  From  one  point  of 
view  the  law  of  the  single  sanctuary  seems  a  poor  out- 
come for  the  great  work  of  Isaiah,  and  yet  when  it  was 
construed  in  the  way  set  forth  in  Deuteronomy  it 
implied  a  real  step  towards  the  spiritualisation  of  all 
the  service  of  God,  and  the  emancipation  of  religion 


LECT.  VIII.  DEUTERONOMY.  3C9 

from  its  connection  with  the  land  and  holy  places  of 

Canaan  (sup^a,  p.  262).      That  the   movement  which 

finds  expression  in  Deuteronomy  became  strong  enough 

under  Josiah  to  lead  to  a  second  and  more  effective 

suppression  of  the  high  places  was  not  in  itself  a  matter 

of  great  importance,  for  the  new  reformation  was  not 

more  permanent  in  genuine  results  of  a  visible  character 

than  that  of  Hezekiah  ;   but  the  spiritual  power  that 

lay  behind  the  political  action  of  Josiah  is  not  to  be 

measured  by  visible  and  immediate  results.     The  book 

of  Deuteronomy  could  not  have  touched  the  conscience 

of  the  nation  even  in  a  momentary  and  superficial  way 

unless  there  had  been  many  in  Judah  who  sympathised 

with  the  spirit  of  that  prophetic  teaching  to  which  the 

new  code  strove  to  give  expression  under  forms  which 

were  indeed,  as  the  sequel  proved,  too  strait  for  its 

spiritual  substance.     The  introduction  now  prefixed  to 

the  Deuteronomic  code  shows  clearly  that  it  was  by 

spiritual  motives,  derived  from  the  prophetic  teaching, 

that  the  new  system  of  ordinances  was  commended  to 

Israel ;  the  great  limitation  of  visible  acts  of  worship 

presented  itself  to  thoughtful  minds  not  as  a  narrowing 

of  the  sphere  of  religion  but  as  a  sublimation  of  its 

contents.     Jehovah  requires  nothing  of  His  people  but 

"  to  fear  Jehovah  thy  God,  to  walk  in  all  His  ways,  and 

to  love  and  serve  Him  with  all  thy  heart  and  all  thy 

soul"  (Deut.  x.  12). 

Thus  we  see,  in  the  second  place,  that  behind  the 

legal  aspect  of  the  movement  of  reformation,  as  it  is 
17 


370  DEUTERONOMY.  lect.  viii. 

expressed  in  the  Deuteronomic  code,  there  lay  a  larger 
principle,  which  no  legal  system  could  exliaust,  and 
which  never  found  full  embodiment  till  the  religion  of 
the  Old  Testament  passed  into  the  religion  of  Christ. 
The  failure  of  Hezekiah's  attempt  to  give  a  political 
expression  to  the  teaching  of  Isaiah  must  have  thrown 
back  the  men  who  had  received  the  chief  share  of  the 
prophet's  spirit  upon  those  unchanging  elements  of 
religion  which  are  independent  of  all  political  ordinances. 
The  religious  life  of  Judah  was  not  wholly  absorbed  in 
the  contest  about  visible  institutions,  the  battle  between 
the  one  and  the  many  sanctuaries.  The  organised  pro- 
phetic party  of  Isaiah,  which  still  found  its  supporters 
in  the  priesthood  as  it  had  done  in  the  first  days  of  that 
prophet's  ministry,  may  soon  have  begun  to  degenerate 
into  that  empty  formalism  which  took  for  its  watchword 
"the  Temple  of  Jehovah,"  against  which  Jeremiah 
preached  as  Isaiah  had  preached  against  the  formalism 
of  his  day  (Jer.  x.  4).  In  Jeremiah's  day  the  doctrine 
of  the  inviolability  of  Zion  became  in  fact  the  very 
axiom  of  mere  political  Jehovah-worship.  That  has 
always  been  the  law  of  the  history  of  religion.  What 
in  one  generation  is  a  living  truth  of  faith  becomes  in 
later  generations  a  mere  dead  formula,  part  of  the  reli- 
gion learned  by  rote  with  which  living  faith  has  to  do 
battle  upon  new  issues.  But  even  in  the  darkest  hours 
of  Israel's  history  the  true  faith  of  Jeliovah  was  never 
left  without  witness,  and  the  men  to  whom  Isaiah's 
teaching  was  more  than  a  formula,  the  community  of 


LECT.  VIII.  JEREMIAH.  371 

those  that  waited  for  Jehovah  in  a  higher  sense  than 
the  mass  even  of  the  so-called  party  of  pure  wor- 
ship, withdrew  more  and  more  from  all  the  forms  of 
political  religion  to  nourish  their  religious  life  in  exer- 
cises purely  spiritual,  and  to  embody  their  hope  of 
Jehovah's  salvation  in  thoughts  that  stretched  far 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  old  dispensation  to  days  when 
Jehovah's  precepts  should  be  written  on  every  heart 
(Jer.  xxxi.).  And  in  this  new  development  of  prophetic 
thought,  of  which  Jeremiah  is  the  great  representative, 
standing  to  the  second  stage  of  the  history  of  prophecy 
in  much  the  same  relation  as  Amos  and  Hosea  stood  to 
the  first,  the  deeper,  though  misdirected,  sense  of  guilt 
so  characteristic  of  the  gloomy  days  of  Judah's  de- 
cadence became  an  important  element.  The  sense  of 
sin  was  not  extenuated,  but  it  was  interpreted  aright 
and  conquered  by  a  new  and  profounder  conception  of 
redeeming  grace,  in  which  the  idea  of  the  spiritual  as 
distinguished  from  the  natural  Israel,  the  servant  of 
Jehovah,  whose  sufferings  are  the  path  of  salvation, 
takes  the  place  of  the  older  and  more  mechanical  notion 
of  judgment  on  the  wicked  and  salvation  to  the  righteous 
(Isa.  xl.  seq}j. 

But  to  develop  these  and  all  the  other  ideas  that 
come  before  us  in  the  great  prophecies  of  the  Chaldsean 
period,  to  trace  the  course  of  the  new  religious  issues 
that  shaped  themselves  in  the  decline  and  fall  of  the 
Judsean  Kingdom,  and  finally  in  exile  and  restoration, 
would  be  a  task  as  large  as  that  which  we  Eave  already 


372  MICAH  VI.  lect.  viii. 

accomplished,  and  must  be  reserved  for  a  future  oppor- 
tunity. Meantime,  the  record  of  the  first  period  of 
prophetic  religion  may  fitly  close  with  the  words  in 
which  the  solitary  voice  crying  out  of  the  darkness  of 
Manasseh's  reign  sets  forth  the  sum  of  all  preceding 
prophetic  teaching,  and  gathers  up  the  whole  revealed 
will  of  Jehovah  in  answer  to  the  false  zeal  of  the 
immoral  bigotry  of  the  age. 

"  0  my  people,  what  have  I  done  unto  thee  ?  and 
wherewith  have  I  wearied  thee  ?  testify  against  Me. 
For  I  brought  thee  up  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  and 
redeemed  thee  out  of  the  house  of  bondage,  and  I  sent 
before  thee  Moses,  Aaron,  and  Miriam.  .  .  .  Where- 
with shall  I  come  before  Jehovah,  and  bow  myself  be- 
fore the  high  God?  Shall  I  come  before  Him  with 
burnt-offerings,  with  calves  of  a  year  old  ?  Will  Jehovah 
be  pleased  with  thousands  of  rams,  or  with  ten  thousands 
of  rivers  of  oil?  Shall  I  give  my  firstborn  for  my 
transgression,  the  fruit  of  my  body  for  the  sin  of  my 
soul  ?  He  hath  showed  thee,  0  man,  what  is  good,  and 
what  doth  Jehovah  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  judgment, 
and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy 
God?"  (Micah  vi.  2  seq). 

It  is  no  mere  religion  of  legal  obedience  that  these 
words  proclaim.  Jehovah  requires  of  man  not  only  to 
do  but  to  love,  mercy.  A  heart  that  delights  in  acts  of 
piety  and  loving-kindness,  the  humility  that  walks  in 
lowly  communion  with  God, — these  are  the  things  in 
which  Jehovah  takes  pleasure,  and  this  is  the  teaching 


LECT.  VIII.  CONCLUSION.  373 

of  the  law  and  the  prophets,  on  which  our  Lord  Himself 
has  set  His  seal  (Matt.  xxii.  37  seq^. 

Thus  in  the  deepest  darkness  of  that  age  of 
declension  which  sealed  the  fate  of  ancient  Israel,  when 
the  true  prophet  could  no  longer  see  any  other  end  to 
the  degenerate  nation  than  a  consuming  judgment  that 
should  leave  the  land  of  Canaan  a  desolation  and  its 
inhabitants  a  hissing  and  a  reproach  among  the  nations 
(Mic.  vi.  16),  the  voice  of  spiritual  faith  rises  high  above 
all  the  limits  of  the  dispensation  that  was  to  pass  away, 
and  sets  forth  the  sum  of  true  religion  in  words  that  can 
never  die.  The  state  of  Israel  perished  ;  the  kingdom 
of  Judah  and  all  the  hopes  that  had  been  built  upon  it 
crumbled  to  the  dust ;  but  the  word  of  the  God  of  Israel 
endureth  for  ever. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTEATIONS. 


Lecture  I. 

Note  1,  p.  4. — Witli  all  its  defects,  the  Federal  theology  of 
Cocceius  is  the  most  important  attempt,  in  the  older  Protest- 
ant theology,  to  do  justice  to  the  historical  development  of 
revelation.  See  Diestel's  essay  in  Jahrh.  f.  d.  TJieoL,  vol.  x.  pp. 
209-276,  and  the  briefer  discussion  in  his  Geschichte  des  Alten 
Testamentes  in  der  christlichen  Kirche  (Jena,  1869).  The  first 
conception,  however,  of  the  Bible  record  as  the  history  of  true 
religion,  of  the  adoption  and  education  of  the  Church  from  age 
to  age  in  a  scheme  of  gradual  advance,  appears  pretty  distinctly 
in  Calvin  ;  and  the  method  of  Calvinistic  theology,  in  which  all 
parts  of  the  plan  of  grace  are  considered  in  dependence  on  the 
idea  of  the  sovereign  Divine  Providence,  made  it  natural  for 
theologians  of  his  school  to  busy  themselves  with  the  demon- 
stration of  the  historical  continuity  of  revelation.  So  long, 
however,  as  it  was  attempted  to  find  the  law  of  this  continuity 
by  speculative  and  dogmatic  methods  rather  than  by  ordinary 
historical  investigation,  no  result  really  satisfactory  could  be 
reached.  In  this  connection  a  reference  may  be  added  to  the 
History  of  Redemrption  of  Jonathan  Edwards. 

Note  2,  p,  5. — In  illustration  of  the  position  taken  up  by 
the  older  Protestant  divines,  I  may  refer  to  Witsius's  treatment 
of  the  Protevangelion,  Gen.  iii.  14  seq.,  in  his  QJconomia  Fc&dei'um, 
lib.  iv.,  cap.  1.  After  deducing  from  the  words  addressed  to 
the  serpent  the  principal  theses  of  systematic  theology,  includ- 
ing the  doctrines  of  Saving  Faith,  Sanctification,  and  the  Eesur- 
rection  of  the  body,  he  remarks  (§  26)  that  it  was  not  unreason- 
able that  so  large  a  range  of  doctrines  should  be  summed  up  in 
a  few  enigmatic  words.  The  splendour  of  midday  was  not 
appropriate  to  the  first  dawn  of  the  day  of  grace  ;  "  and  besides, 


376  ASSYRIAN  SOURCES.  lect.  i. 

God  did  not  even  then  withdraw  revelations  of  Himself  from  our 
first  parents,  but  by  frequent  instruction  and  gracious  illumina- 
tion of  their  minds  expounded  to  them  the  things  that  concern 
faith  and  Jjiety.  And  it  is  fair  to  suppose  that  they  treasured 
up  this  promise  of  salvation  in  particular,  thought  over  it  with 
care,  and  expounded  it  in  frequent  discourse  to  one  another  and 
their  children."  In  other  words,  they  received  from  the  Revealer, 
and  handed  down  to  their  posterity,  a  traditional  exposition  of 
the  words  of  Scripture. 

Note  3,  p.  13. — The  great  empires  of  the  East  overran 
foreign  countries,  reducing  them  to  subjection,  or  even  trans- 
planting their  inhabitants  to  new  seats,  but  made  no  attempt  to 
break  down  differences  of  national  custom  between  the  several 
parts  of  their  realm,  or  to  assimilate  the  conquered  peoples  to  a 
single  cosmopolitan  type.  The  motley  character  of  the  great 
Persian  empire,  for  example,  is  strikingly  illustrated  in  the 
picture  drawn  by  Herodotus  (vii.  61  seq)  of  the  various  contin- 
gents that  served  in  the  army  of  Xerxes,  each  in  its  own 
national  garb.  In  contrast  with  the  earlier  empires  the  kingdom 
of  the  Greeks  appears  to  the  prophet  Daniel,  as  "  diverse  from 
all  kingdoms,  devouring  the  whole  earth,  treading  it  down,  and 
breaking  it  in  pieces"  (Dan.  vii.).  And  so  King  Antiochus,  who 
sought  to  Hellenise  his  subjects,  is  spoken  of  as  "  changing  times 
and  laws  "  {Ibid.  ver.  25).  But  the  first  thoroughgoing  and  suc- 
cessful attempt  to  create  an  empire  possessing  an  organic  unity, 
with  a  cosmopolitan  civilisation  and  institutions  displacing  the 
old  varieties  of  local  custom  and  law,  was  the  monarchy  of  Ceesar. 
See  Mommsen's  History ,  bk.  v.  ch.  11. 

Note  4,  p.  19. — A  large  mass  of  translations  from  Assyrian 
and  Babylonian  texts  is  now  accessible  to  the  English  reader,  in 
numerous  separate  publications,  such  as  those  of  the  late  G. 
Smith,  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archceology, 
and  in  the  somewhat  unequal  but  very  convenient  collection 
published  by  Messrs.  Bagster  under  the  title  of  Becords  of  the  Past. 
In  this  collection  the  volumes  with  odd  numbers  (i.  to  xi.)  con- 
tain the  Assyrian  texts.  There  can  be  no  question  that  the 
sense  of  a  great  many  texts,  especially  simple  historical  narratives, 
has  been  determined  with  sufficient  certainty  to  afford  the 
greatest  assistance  in  the  study  of  the  Bible  history  ;  and  most 
fortunately  the  Assyrian  chronology,  as  determined  in  particular 
by  the  Eponym  Canon  {supra,  p.  150),  is  one  of  the  most  certain  as 


THE  HITTITES.  Zll 


it  is  one  of  the  most  important  of  the  new  discoveries.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  many  details  even  of  historical  texts  are  too 
imperfectly  understood  to  justify  the  large  conclusions  too  often 
built  on  them,  and,  above  all,  the  reading  and  identification  of 
proper  names  in  certain  ways  of  writing  them — for  in  Assyrian 
character  the  same  sounds  may  be  written  in  different  ways,  and 
the  same  character  may  have  different  sounds — are  often  highly 
precarious.  The  doubts  that  still  attach  to  many  things  which 
have  been  accepted,  often  on  the  faith  of  a  single  Assyriologist 
who  does  not  himself  distinguish  his  facts  from  his  conjectures, 
have  been  very  forcibly  set  forth,  though  perhaps  with  an  extreme 
of  scepticism,  by  Prof.  v.  Gutschmid  in  his  Ntue  Beitrdge,  Leipzig, 
1876,  and  a  more  popular  demonstration  of  the  amount  of 
uncertainty  still  attaching  to  the  translations  of  historical  texts 
will  be  found  in  the  recent  brochure  of  M.  A.  Delattre,  Les 
inscriptions  kistoriques  de  Ninive  et  de  Babylone  (Paris,  1879). 
In  truth,  there  are  few  Assyriologists  in  Europe  whose  tact, 
caution,  and  general  knowledge  of  the  Semitic  dialects  entitle 
them  to  speak  -with  authority  upon  problems  far  more  difficult 
than  those,  for  example,  of  the  Phoenician  inscriptions,  where  our 
best  orientalists  are  often  not  ashamed  to  confess  themselves  at 
a  loss.  The  very  nature  of  the  material  often  compels  the 
tramslator  to  guess  at  the  general  import  of  a  mutilated  text  or 
at  the  true  sense  of  a  word.  It  is  fair,  indeed,  to  remember  that 
the  vast  extent  of  the  material  now  available  and  the  great 
sameness  of  style  and  expression  which  characterises  Assyrian 
historical  documents  often  counterbalance  these  difficulties.  As 
regards  the  application  of  Assyrian  results  to  the  Old  Testament, 
it  is  too  often  forgotten  that  the  fruits  of  Assyrian  study  can  be 
of  no  substantial  use  to  the  Biblical  student  except  in  connection 
with  a  critical  study  of  the  Hebrew  sources. 

As  I  am  not  able  to  make  independent  use  of  the  cuneiform 
monuments,  I  do  not  venture  to  build  upon  them  in  the  present 
volume  except  where  the  sense  seems  to  be  thoroughly  made 
out  by  the  consent  of  the  best  scholars. 

Note  5,  p.  23. — On  the  Hittites  see  Mr.  Cheyne's  article  in 
the  ninth  edition  of  the  E^icyclopcedia  Britannica.  On  the 
identification  of  Carchemish  with  the  modern  Jirbas  (Yakut  ii. 
688) — that  is,  the  Syriac  Agropos,  Greek  E-u/9co7ros,  'fipwTros — see 
G.  Hoffmann, >S'?/nsc/ig  Akten  Persischer  Mdrtyrer  (1880),  p.  1 61  seq. ; 
Delitzsch,  Wo  lag  das  Paradies?  (1881),  p.  265  seq.     The  name 


378  ISRAEL  IN 


lerabolus  given  by  some  travellers  is  false.  The  town  lay  on 
the  west  side  of  the  Euphrates  opposite  Der  Kinnisre.  The 
passage  of  Stephanus  Byzantius,  quoted  by  Hoffmann,  which  says 
that  Oropus  was  formerly  called  TeA/x,7^cro-os,  presumably  ^fl 
tJ^'D,  not  only  confirms  the  identification  with  Carchemish,  but 
shows  that  the  latter  is  a  Semitic  word,  "  castle  of  Mish." 

Note  6,  p.  26. — See  Wellhausen,  Ja/wft. /.  f?.  Theol.jVol,  xxi. 
p.602  ;  Meyer  in  Stade's  Zeitschrift, vol.  i.  p.  122  ;  Stade,  (?esc/iic/i^g, 
p.  110.  An  essay  by  Steinthal,  Z.  f.  Volkerjysychologie,  vol.  xii. 
p.  267,  is  referred  to  by  the  last  two  writers. 

Note  7,  p.  28. — See  especially  Wellhausen,  De  Gentibas  et 
Familiis  Judceis,  Gott.,  1870,  and  Geschichte,  vol.  i.  p.  225  seq.,  for 
the  analysis  of  the  genealogy  of  the  originally  nomad  elements 
of  Judah,  the  Hezronites.  The  great  clan  of  the  Kalibbites 
(Caleb)  belonged  to  this  branch  of  the  population  of  Southern 
Jud^a.  For  the  Amalekites  and  their  original  connection  with 
Mt.  Ephraim,  see  Judges  v.  14;  xii.  15;  Noldeke,  Ueber  die 
Amalekiter^  u.s.w.,  Gott,  1864. 

Note  8,  p.  29. — As  we  shall  hear  of  these  routes  again  in 
connection  wdth  the  history  of  Judah,  I  may  here  refer  to 
Pliny's  account  of  the  great  incense  road  from  Thomna  to  Gaza 
{H.  iV.  xii.  14),  and  the  discussion  in  Sprenger's  Alte  Geographie 
Arabiens,  Bern,  1875,  p.  141  seq.  On  this  inland  route  the 
Edomite  capital  of  Petra  was  a  station.  The  incense  trade,  it 
must  be  remembered,  was  of  enormous  importance  in  ancient 
times  from  the  use  of  frankincense  in  all  temples. 

Note  9,  p.  29. — The  land  of  Goshen  did  not  belong  to  the 
Delta  proper,  which  never  can  have  been  given  up  to  a  shepherd 
tribe,  and  would  not  have  suited  their  way  of  life.  In  all  ages 
nomadic  or  half  nomadic  tribes,  quite  distinct  from  the  Egyptians 
proper,  have  pastured  their  flocks  on  the  verge  of  the  rich  lands 
of  the  Delta.  The  Eastern  shepherd  or  herdsman  does  not  base 
his  conception  of  good  pasture  ground  on  anything  like  an 
English  meadow,  and  it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  the 
south-eastern  borders  of  the  Delta  were  much  more  fertile  in  the 
days  of  Moses  than  they  are  now.  That  the  Isi-aelites  at  this 
time  came  under  any  considerable  influence  of  Egyptian 
civilisation  must  appear  highly  improbable  to  any  one  wdio 
knows  the  life  of  the  nomacls  of  Egypt  even  in  the  present  day, 
when  there  is  a  large  Arab  element  in  the  settled  population. 
It  is  impossible  here  to  enter  into  details  on  the  supposed  traces 


EGYPT.  379 


of  Egyptian  culture  and  religion  in  the  institutions  of  Israel ;  but 
it  may  safely  be  affirmed  that  they  are  far  fewer  than  is  often 
stated,  and  that  those  which  are  beyond  question  cannot  be  traced 
back  to  the  oldest  times,  and  may  with  great  probability  be  held 
to  have  come  in  for  the  most  part,  not  from  Egypt  direct,  but 
through  the  Phoenicians. 

Note  10,  p.  29. — The  important  assistance  rendered  to  Israel 
by  the  Kenites  comes  out  clearly  in  the  oldest  parts  of  the 
Pentateuchal  narrative.  Compare  Exod.  xviii.  and  Num.  x.  29 
seg'.,  with  Judges  i.  16  ;  iv.  11  ;  1  Sam.  xv.  6. 

Note  11,  p.  29. — The  classical  passage  in  this  connection      / 
is  Judges  i.  ;  comp.  Josh,  xviii.  14  8cq^.  ;  Judges  xvii.  1  seg.     See 
especially  Graf,  l)er  Stamm  Simeon^  Meissen,  1866. 

Note  12,  p.  30. — On  the  stoiie  of  Dibon,  which  records  the 
victories  of  King  Mesha  (2  Kings  iii.)  over  the  Israelites,  we  ^ 
read  that  he  slew  the  whole  inhabitants  of  Nebo,  seven  thousand 
in  number,  for  they  were  devoted  by  the  ban  to  Ashtar-Kamosh 
— a  deity  related  to  the  god  Chemosh,  who  is  repeatedly  men- 
tioned in  the  Bible. 

Note  13,  p.  34.  —  See  Tlie  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish 
Church  (1881),  especially  Lectures  xi.  and  xii.  It  may  be 
convenient  to  repeat  that  the  three  main  masses  of  legislation 
still  distinguishable  in  the  Pentateuch  are — (1)  The  Book  of  the 
Covenant,  as  it  is  generally  called,  Exod.  xxi.-xxiii.,  a  primitive 
legislation  designed  for  a  very  simple  state  of  agricultural  society, 
and  corresponding  in  its  precepts  with  the  traces  of  the  actual 
usage  and  law  of  Israel  found  in  the  history  of  the  age  of  the 
Judges  and  the  earlier  monarchy.  (2)  The  Deuteronomic  Code, 
Deut.  xii.-xxvi.,  in  which  the  laws  of  the  Book  of  the  Covenant 
are  recast  with  special  reference  to  the  limitation  of  ritual 
worship  to  a  single  sanctuary.  This  limitation  is  introduced  as 
a  new  thing.  It  was  unknown  up  to  the  time  of  Isaiah  and 
Hezekiah,  but  was  formally  accepted  as  law  when  the 
Deuteronomic  code  was  promulgated  as  binding  in  the  great 
reformation  of  the  reign  of  Josiah.  The  code  must  have  been 
Avritten  between  this  date  (b.c.  621  or  622)  and  the  reforms 
which  Hezekiah  adopted  after  the  retreat  of  Sennacherib  in 
B.C.  701  (see  Lect.  viii.).  (3)  The  Priestly  or  Levitical  Legislation, 
composed  after  the  book  of  Ezekiel  and  adoj^ted  as  the  law  of  the 
New  Jerusalem  (in  conjunction  with  the  rest  of  the  Pentateuch) 
under  Ezra,  B.C.  445.      See  Neh.  viii.  seq. 


380  THE  KINGSHIP  lect.  ii. 

Note  14,  p.  35, — The  main  passage  for  the  way  in  which 
Moses  organised  the  administration  of  justice  in  Israel  is  Exod. 
xviii.      Compare  0.  T.   in  Jeivish  Church,  p.  334. 

Note  15,  p.  36. — "Every  Arab  tribe,"  says  Burckhardt,  "has 
its  chief  sheikh,  and  every  camp  is  headed  by  a  sheikh,  or  at  least 
by  an  Arab  of  some  consideration  ;  but  the  sheikh  has  no  actual 
authority  over  the  individuals  of  his  tribe.  .  .  .  Should  a  dis- 
])ute  happen  between  two  individuals  the  sheikh  will  endeavour 
to  settle  the  matter  ;  but  if  either  party  be  dissatisfied  with  his 
advice  he  cannot  insist  upon  obedience.  The  Arab  can  only  be 
persuaded  by  his  own  relations  ;  and  if  they  fail  war  commences 
between  the  two  families  and  all  their  kindred  respectively.  .  .  . 
In  fact  the  most  powerful  Aeneze  chief  dares  not  inflict  a  trifling 
punishment  on  the  poorest  man  of  his  tribe  without  incurring 
the  risk  of  mortal  vengeance  from  the  individual  and  his  rela- 
tions  The  prerogative  of  the  sheikhs  consists  in  leading 

their  tribe  agaiflst  the  enemy  ;  in  conducting  negotiations  for 
peace  or  war;  in  fixing  the  spot  for  encampments;  in  entertaining 
strangers  of  note,  etc.,  and  even  these  privileges  are  muc,h  limited." 
— Bedouins  and  Wahabys,  8vo  ed.,  p.  1 1 5  seq. 

Note  16,  p.  39. — See  0.  T.  in  Jewish  Church,  p.  225  seq., 
p.  257  and  note  (Shecliem  in  the  time  of  Abimelech  was  a 
Canaanite  town),  p.  78  seq. ;  and  infra,  Lect  ii.  note  6. 

Lecture  II. 

Note  1,  p.  47. — On  the  one  hand,  the  great  Phoenician 
trading  cities,  with  the  usual  jealousy  of  commercial  monopolists, 
were  little  disposed  to  form  a  close  and  equal  union  with  any 
outside  their  own  circle.  Nor  were  they  disposed  to  warlike 
operations  to  extend  their  territory.  Carthage,  it  will  be 
remembered,  neither  made  the  natives  Carthaginians  nor  even 
sought  to  make  them  subjects  till  a  comparatively  late  date. 
See  Mommsen's  History  of  Rome,  bk.  iii.  chap.  1.  The  jealousy 
and  political  inertness  of  the  Phcenicians  had  two  results.  It 
long  prevented  the  Hebrews  from  becoming  a  trading  people, 
and  so  saved  them  from  rapid  social  changes  which  would  greatly 
have  endangered  their  old  life  and  religion ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  left  them  free  to  deal  as  they  could  with  the  Canaanites 
of  the  interior.  Even  in  the  interior  the  Canaanites  continued 
to  be  the  trading  class,  and,  as  the  Hebrews  occupied  the  land, 


LECT.  II.  IN  ISRAEL.  381 

became  more  and  more  exclusively  traders.  Between  traders 
and  cultivators  of  the  soil  there  was  a  natural  class-antagonism, 
which  no  doubt  helped  to  maintain  the  distinct  character  of 
Israel.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Israelites  of  the  frontier,  in 
Judah  and  beyond  the  Jordan  in  Gilead,  evidently  retained  not 
a  little  of  the  ancient  nomad  habits,  and  in  part  were  closely 
allied  with  other  tribes  of  the  wilderness.  Thus  we  find  from 
time  to  time  expressions  of  that  characteristic  distaste  for  the 
ease  and  luxuries  of  settled  life  which  belongs  to  the  genuine 
Bedouin.  The  Nazarite  vow  against  drinking  wine  and  the  laws 
of  the  Rechabites  are  cases  in  point.  And  the  Eechabites,  like 
the  Nazarites,  were  on  the  side  of  the  old  Jehovah  worship,  and 
against  the  Canaanite  Baal. 

Note  2,  p.  47. — That  the  institution  of  the  kingship  was  a 
necessary  step  in  the  development  of  national  unity,  and  tlierefore 
also  in  the  progress  of  the  religion  of  Jehovah,  is  often  overlooked 
under  the  too  exclusive  influence  of  1  Sam.  viii. ;  x.  17-27  ;  xii. 
But  it  is  always  a  mistake  to  estimate  the  real  significance  of 
events  in  ancient  history  by  the  speeches  —  never  literally 
reported  and  often  used  as  a  convenient  and,  on  ancient  literary 
methods,  legitimate  vehicle  for  reflections  of  a  later  age  influenced 
by  changed  circumstances — which  are  now  interwoven  with  the 
context  of  the  narrative,  instead  of  allowing  ourselves  to  be 
guided  by  the  historical  context  of  events  ;  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact  no  one  can  doubt  that  the  institution  of  the  kingship  was  a 
great  blessing  to  Israel,  putting  an  end  to  the  state  of  anarchy 
which  the  book  of  Judges  justly  represents  as  most  unfavourable 
to  religious  progress.  Nor  is  it  less  clear  that  Israel  from  the 
first  recognised  this  blessing  as  a  special  gift  of  Jehovah,  who 
sanctioned  the  kingship  by  bestowing  His  spirit  on  the  king 
(1  Sam.  X.  6  ;  xvi.  13).  In  the  Blessing  of  Moses  the  kingship 
is  represented  as  the  crowning  gift  of  Jehovah,  by  which  the 
branches  of  the  nation  and  the  tribes  of  Jacob  were  united 
together  (Deut.  xxxiii.  5).  Modern  criticism  has  made  all  this 
much  more  plain  by  pointing  out  that  there  are  two  distinct  but 
parallel  accounts  of  the  choice  of  Saul,  the  older  version  beino- 
preserved  in  1  Sam.  ix. ;  x.  1-16  ;  xi.  (omitting  v.  14).  After  his 
unction  Saul  returns  to  his  father's  house,  awaiting  the  opportunity 
indicated  in  x.  7  ;  after  about  a  month  (so  the  LXX.  in  xi  1) 
this  opportunity  arises  in  the  invasion  of  Nahash,  and  the 
sovereignty  which  Saul  had  assumed  on  this  occasion  in  virtue 


382  TITHES. 


of  a  divine  impulse  (xi  6),  is  solemnly  confirmed  after  the 
victory.  The  detailed  proof  of  the  separate  character  and  greater 
antiquity  of  this  form  of  the  narrative  may  be  found  in  Bleek's 
Einleitung,  4th  ed.,  by  Wellhausen,  p.  210  seg.,  wdth  which  com- 
pare the  corresponding  discussion  in  Wellhausen's  Text  der  Bilcher 
Sanmelis.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  attacks  on  Samuel  so 
current  in  the  older  sceptical  school  (see,  for  example,  Volney's 
Ilistoire  de  Samuel),  derive  their  whole  plausibility  from  the  one- 
sidedness  of  the  current  uncritical  treatment  of  the  history. 

Note  3,  p.  50. — The  English  reader  will  find  an  account  of 
this  celebrated  monument,  now  in  the  Louvre,  and  the  translation 
of  the  inscription  which  it  bears,  in  an  article  [by  Professor 
W.  Wright  of  Cambridge],  printed  in  the  North  British  Review, 
October  1870,  or  in  Dr.  Ginsburg's  Moabite  Stone  (2d  ed.  1871), 
where  an  account  is  also  given  of  the  literature  of  the  subject. 
Dr.  Ginsburg's  version  is  reprinted  in  Records  of  the  Past,  vol.  xi. 
p.  165.  See  also  Dr.  A.  B.  Davidson  in  the  B.  and  F.  Ev. 
Revieiv,  1871. 

Note  4,  p.  51. — The  history  of  this  celebrated  monument 
and  a  list  of  the  literature  connected  with  it  are  to  be  found  in 
the  Corjms  Inscriptionum  Semiticarum,  pars  I.,  tom.  i.,  p.  1  seq. 
(Paris  1881).      The  inscription  dates  from  the  Persian  period. 

Note  5,  p.  53. — On  tithes  in  antiquity  outside  Israel  see 
the  essays  of  Selden  and  Hottinger,  Spencer,  Leg.  Rit.  Heh., 
lib.  iii.  c.  10  ;  Winer,  s.v.  "  Zehnten,"  Ewald,  AUerthilmer,  p.  398 
(Eng.  tr.,  p.  300)  ;  Knobel  on  Lev.  xxvii.  30  seq.  The  practice 
of  paying  tithes  to  the  gods  was  widely  diffused,  l.ioth  in  the 
i'orm  in  which  it  appears  in  Gen.  xiv.  20,  where  tithes  are  paid 
from  booty  (which  in  Greece  was  the  commonest  case),  and  in  the 
sliape  of  a  regular  tribute  on  the  products  of  agriculture,  trade,  or 
the  like.  It  is  sufficient  for  the  present  jDurpose  to  indicate  the 
prevalence  and  scope  of  tithes  among  Semitic  nations  or  in 
regions  of  Semitic  influence.  Here  it  is  to  be  noted  first  that 
tithes  Avere  paid  to  the  king  (as  in  1  Sam,  viii.)  according  to  the 
ancient  Babylonian  law  revived  under  Alexander  (Aristot.  CEcon., 
ii.  p.  1352  h  of  the  Berlin  ed. ;  comp.  p.  1345  seq.).  Next,  as 
regards  tithes  to  the  gods,  it  is  attested  by  Diodorus,  xx,  14,  that 
the  Carthaginians  as  a  Tyrian  colony  paid  tithes  to  the  Tyrian 
sun-god  Melkarth  or  Herakles,  the  divine  king  of  the  city ;  and 
in  like  manner  Hercules  was  the  god  to  whom  the  Romans  paid 
tithes   (I)iodor.,   iv.   21;   Plut,   Mor.   ii.    267    E;   compare  the 


LECT.  II.  SACRED  FEASTS.  383 


authorities  collected  by  Wyttenbach  in  his  index  to  Pint.,  Mor. 
s.v.  '^YipaKXr}^).  Among  the  Arabs  of  the  frankincense  country 
tithes  of  ihis  product  were  paid  to  the  priests  of  the  sun- god 
Sabis  (Pin.  Xii.  32).  Among  the  Arabs,  says  the  scholiast  to 
Harith  {MoaL,  ed.  Arnold,  p.  186),  "  men  used  to  vow  " — just  as 
Jacob  vowed  at  Bethel  —  "  If  God  gives  me  a  hundred  sheep  I 
will  sacrifice  one  in  every  ten."  The  discharge  of  this  vow  was  not 
enforced,  and  often  "  his  soul  grudged  what  he  had  vowed,  and 
he  would  hunt  a  gazelle  and  substitute  it  for  the  sheep  that 
were  due"  (cf.  Mai.  i.  14).  The  tax  on  the  produce  of  their  mines 
paid  by  the  Siphnians  at  Delphi  (Hdt.  iii.  57  ;  Pausan.  x.  11.2) 
may  be  plausibly  ascribed  to  Phoenician  influence,  and  tithes 
are  also  an  institution  in  various  parts  of  Asia  Minor,  where  we. 
know  the  influence  of  Semitic  religion  to  have  been  very  great ; 
e.g.,  in  Lydia  there  was  a  tithe  on  cattle  (Nic.  Damasc.  in  Mliller's 
Fragm.  Hist.  Gr.,  iii.  371).  The  mention  of  tlie  Kabiri  also 
speaks  for  a  Semitic  element  m  the  sacrifice  of  tithes  or  first- 
fruits — note  the  connection  of  the  two  ideas — by  the  Pelasgi 
mentioned  by  Dion.  Hal.,  A.  R.  i.  23. 

Note  6,  p.  56. — In  the  oldest  legislation  (Exod.  xxiii.  14 
seq.',  xxxiv.  18  seq.)  the  three  annual  feasts  are  (1)  the  feast  of 
unleavened  bread,  (2)  the  feast  of  harvest,  (3)  the  feast  of  in- 
gathering (of  autumn  fruits).  The  two  first  mark  the  beginning 
and  end  of  the  corn-harvest ;  compare  Deut.  xvi.  9  ;  Lev. 
xxiii.  10.  Thus  the  agricultural  reference  of  all  these  feasts  is 
clear,  and  they  are  to  be  compared  with  similar  agricultural 
festivals  and  ofterings  of  first-fruits  among  other  ancient  nations. 
Pliny,  for  example,  says  of  the  ancient  Eomans  that  they  would 
not  even  taste  the  new  corn  or  wine  till  the  priests  had  tasted 
the  first-fruits  {H.  N.  xviii.  2)  and — to  take  an  instance  from 
Semitic  races — a  feast  of  first-fruits  in  the  month  of  May  was 
celebrated  according  to  En-Nedim  by  the  heathen  Harranians 
(Chwolson,  Ssahier,  ii.  25  ;  Fihrist, ed.  Fliigel,  p. 322).  See  Spencer, 
Op.  cit,  lib.  iii.  cap.  8,  9.  To  trace  correspondences  in  detail 
between  the  Hebrew  feasts  and  those  of  the  surrounding  nations 
is  not  so  easy.  The  occasions  of  the  Hebrew  festivals  are  those 
naturally  suggested  by  the  course  of  the  seasons  of  husbandry, 
while  at  an  early  date  we  find  among  their  neighbours  feasts 
determined  rather  by  astronomical  considerations,  and  having 
reference  to  the  worship  of  the  heavenly  bodies ;  such,  for 
example,  as    the   Tyrian  feast   of   the  awakening  of   the  sun 


384  THE  SABBATH.  lect.  ii. 

(Herakles),  Jos,  Ant.,  viii.  5,  3.  Tliis  feast,  however,  is  said  to 
have  been  first  instituted  by  Hiram,  and  it  is  probable  that  in 
general  agricultural  festivals  were  older  than  astronomical  ones. 
Thus,  in  Judges  ix.  27  we  find  a  Canaanite  vintage  feast  cor- 
responding to  the  Hebrew  feast  of  ingathering,  which  in  the 
early  books  appears  as  the  principal  yearly  feast,  or  at  least  as 
the  pilgrimage  feast,  when  men  had  leisure  to  visit  distant 
shrines  (1  Kings  xii.  32).  Ewald  (Ant,  E.  T.  p.  351,  comp. 
Z.f.  d.  Kunde  des  Morgenlandes,  iii.  419),  who  conjectures  that  a 
spring  and  an  autumn  feast  were  known  to  the  Hebrews  before 
the  time  of  Moses,  points  to  the  fact  that  according  to  the 
scholion  cited  in  last  note,  the  Arabs  paid  tithes  in  the  month 
Rajab,  and  that  the  Arabs  had  of  old  two  sacred  months 
— Moharram,  the  first  month  from  autumn,  and  Rajab,  the 
seventh.  See,  however,  Sprenger  in  Z.  D.  M.  G.,  1859,  p.  134 
seq. ;  Leben  Moliammed's,  iii.  516  seq.  ;  Dozy,  Israeliten  fe  Mekka, 
p.  138,  from  which  it  will  be  seen  that  there  is  still  consider- 
able obscurity  about  the  holy  seasons  of  the  heathen  Arabs. 
The  ancient  holiness  of  Rajab  as  a  sacrificial  season  (see  Lane 
s.  V.)  is  the  best  established  point,  and  as  this  month  corresponds 
to  the  Hebrew  Nisan,  the  sacrifices  then  offered  may  be  taken 
as  a  probable  parallel  to  the  paschal  sacrifices  of  the  Hebrews. 

That  there  were  great  similarities  in  the  method  of  celebra- 
tion between  the  feasts  of  the  Hebrews  and  their  heathen  neigh- 
bours is  clear  from  the  Bible,  especially  from  the  undoubted 
fact  of  the  admixture  of  elements  of  Baal  worship  with  the 
service  of  Jehovah.  The  custom  of  holding  feasts  in  tents  or 
booths  (Hosea  xii.  9)  reappears  in  the  Babylonian  Saccea  and 
elsewhere  in  the  East  ;  see  Movers,  Phmnizier,  i.  483  seq.  Again, 
the  Hebrew  technical  term  m^V  reappears  in  the  worship  of 
the  Tyrian  Baal,  2  Kings  x.  20.  The  description  of  Syrian 
festivals  given  by  Posidonius  (Miiller,  Fragmenta,  iii.  258),  the 
copious  eating  and  drinking,  the  portions  carried  home,  the 
noisy  music,  recalls  forcibly  what  we  read  of  the  Hebrew  feasts 
(1  Sam.  i.  14  ;  2  Sam.  vi.  19  ;  Lam.  ii.  7,  etc.). 

In  addition  to  the  great  yearly  feasts,  Hosea  ii.  13  specially 
designates  the  Sabbath  and  the  New  Moon  as  occasions  of  festal 
joy.  The  latter  of  these  was  also  a  sacred  season  among  the 
Phoenicians  celebrated  by  special  offerings,  Corp.  Inscr.  Sem.,  pars 
i.  cap.  2,  No.  86.  The  Sabbath,  on  the  other  hand,  as  a  day  of 
joy,  stands  in  marked  contrast  to  the  unlucky  seventh  day  of  the 


LECT.  II.  THE  NAME  JEHOVAH.  385 

Babylonians,  on  wliicli  see  Sayce  in  Records  of  the  Past,  i.  164  ; 
vii.  157  seq.  The  relation  of  the  Hebrew  Sabbath  to  the 
planetary  week  of  the  Babylonians,  in  which  the  seventh  day  is 
connected  with  Saturn,  is  still  far  from  clear.  The  week  is 
perhaps  originally  nothing  else  than  the  fourth  part  of  a  luna- 
tion. Thus  among  the  Harranians,  if  we  may  believe  En- 
Nedim,  four  days  in  each  month  were  suitable  for  sacrifices, 
and  to  these  belonged  the  new  moon,  the  first  quarter,  and  the 
twenty-eighth  day.     (Chwolson,  ii.  8  ;  Fihrist,  ed.  Fl.,  319.) 

Note  7,  p.  56. — The  literature  of  the  sacrificial  tablet  of 
Marseilles  is  cited,  and  the  inscription  itself  published  with  a 
commentary  in  Schroder's  PhoniziscJie  Sprache,  p.  237  seq.  It 
contains  an  account  of  the  dues  in  money  or  in  parts  of  the 
victim  to  be  paid  to  the  priest  for  every  kind  of  sacrifice.  A 
fragment  of  a  sinular  tablet  from  Carthage  may  be  found  in  the 
same  work,  or  in  Davis,  Carthage  and  her  Remains,  p.  296  seq. 

Note  8,  p.  57. — See  in  particular  the  inscription  of  lehaw- 
melek  {G.  I.  S.,  p.  i.  cap.  1.  Art.  1,  where  the  king  records  the 
erection  of  a  brazen  altar,  of  golden  chased  work,  and  of  a 
portico  and  columns.  The  aspect  of  a  Phoenician  temple,  with 
its  court  and  portico  and  a  lofty  obelisk  or  sun-pillar,  is  best 
seen  on  the  coin  of  Byblus,  figured  ibid.  p.  6,  and  in  Kenan's 
Jfiss.  de  Phenicie,  p.  177.  The  brazen  altar  recurs  in  the  Sardo 
trilinguis  (Schroder,  p.  249  ;  Levy,  Phon.  Stud.,  iii.  40).  The 
palm-tree  or  palm -branch  found  among  the  temple  ornaments  is 
one  of  the  commonest  of  Phoenician  symbols.  See,  for  example, 
the  woodcuts  in  Kenan's  Mission,  p.  651  seq.-,  the  woodcut  from 
Yarun,  Survey  of  Western  Palestine,  i.  259,  and  the  coins  figured 
by  Schroder,  Plate  xviii.  10-14.  Compare  further  Old  Test  in 
J.  Gk,  p.  248  and  note  2  there.  For  the  classes  of  ministers  in 
a  Phoenician  sanctuary,  see  C.  I.  S.,  No.  86. 

Note  9,  p.  57. — See  Old  Test,  in  J.  Gh.,  p.  285  and  note 
4  there. 

Note  10,  p.  62. — The  ancient  exegesis  of  Exod.  iii.  14  flowed 
in  two  main  channels.  The  Hellenistic  tradition,  attaching 
itself  to  the  rendering  of  the  LXX.,  iyxt  et/xt  6  wv  .  .  .  6  wv 
direa-TaXKc  fxe,  finds  the  meaning  of  the  inefiable  name  in  the 
absolute  being  and  aseitf/  of  God  ;  the  Palestinian  tradition,  on 
the  other  hand,  understands  the  name  of  God's  eternity  and 
immutability.  The  former  view  is  untenable  on  linguistic 
grounds,  for  the  Hebrew  substantive  verb  has  not  the  sense  of 

2  c 


386  THE  NAME  lect.  ii. 


metaphysical  entity,  and  the  imperfect  ri\1X  does  not  mean  / 
am,  but  /  will  he  [something].  This  the  Palestinian  exegesis 
recognised  (Aq.,  Theod.),  and,  taking  the  verb,  not  in  the  abstract 
metaphysical  sense  of  the  Hellenistic  interpretation,  but  in  the 
simpler  sense  of  actuality  (Daseyn),  which  it  certainly  has,  at 
least  in  later  Biblical  Hebrew,  they  seem  to  have  got  the  notion 
of  eternity  by  rendering  /  will  be  in  existence,  I  will  not  cease  to 
he.  In  that  case  the  whole  clause  must  be  rendered  [JSIy  name 
is']  I  will  he,  [that  is]  I  ivho  will  he.  As  A.  ben  Ezra  puts  it,  lE^t? 
riMX  is  an  explanatory  aj^position  to  n\"lj<.  This  view  of  the 
grammatical  structure  of  the  clause  has  been  recently  supported 
by  Mr.  W.  A.  "Wright  {Jo2ir.  Phil,  iv.  70)  and  Wellhausen 
{Z.f.  d.  Th.,  xxi.  540),  who,  however,  do  not  object  to  retain 
the  present  tense,  which  I  think  is  impossible  in  such  a  connec- 
tion and  with  the  substantive  verb.  For  my  own  part,  I  doubt 
if  even  the  notion  of  actuality,  as  we  find  it  in  the  Hebrew  of 
Ecclesiastes,  can  be  given  to  the  substantive  verb  in  such  an 
early  passage.  The  sense  of  riMX  is  not  so  much  /  exist  or  / 
will  exist  as  1  will  he  it — an  incomplete  predication.  On  this 
view  the  predication,  incomplete  in  the  simple  nin''  or  riMS,  is 
completed  in  the  fuller  iTTli^  l^i^  n\n5<.  This  clause  may  cer- 
tainly be  grammatically  rendered  Be  I  what  I  may — a  view 
adopted  and  grammatically  justified  with  his  usual  wealth  of 
illustration  by  Lagarde,  Psalt.  Hieron.,  p.  156  seq.  To  the  pass- 
ages from  various  languages  which  he  cites — the  Biblical  ones 
are  Gen.  xliii.  14  ;  1  Sam.  i.  24;  xxiii.  13  ;  2  Sam.  xv.  20  ; 
Zech.  X.  8  ;  Ezek.  xii.  25 — I  add  in  illustration  of  the  idiom, 
Deut.  ix.  25  ;  Exod.  iv.  13  ;  xvi.  23  ;  xxxiii.  19  ;  Esther  iv.  16  ; 
Mishna,  Shah.  xiv.  4  JOIDi  ^?^"lnJ  DS;  Freytag,  Prov.  Ar.,  i.  339, 
No.  212,  Ujlus  heith  tajlus ;  Tabary,  iii.  93,  1.  3,  qataltu  man 
qataltu.  The  great  difficulty  in  the  view  of  Professor  Lagarde, 
and  indeed  in  almost  every  view  except  that  of  A.  ben  Ezra,  is 
that  the  meaning  of  the  full  riTlX  lli^X  HTIt?  disappears  in  the 
sliorter  form  ilTIX  or  nin%  the  whole  clause  being  essential  to 
the  sense.  In  a  paper  in  Brit,  and  For.  Ev.  Rev.,  Jan.  1876,  I 
proposed  to  meet  this  difficulty  by  following  out  the  hint  given 
by  K  Jehuda  Hallevy  (Knsari,  ed.  Cassel,  p.  304),  who  explains 
HMK  to  mean  "  I  will  be  present  to  them  when  they  seek  me," 
and  appeals  to  ver.  12,  "I  will  be  with  thee,"  in  support  of  this 
interpretation.  In  truth  this  divine  /  will  he  rings  through 
the  whole   Bible   in  varying   form  (Gen.  xxvi.  3 ;  Josh.  i.  5  ; 


LECT.  II.  JEHOVAH.  387 

Judges  vi.  16  ;  Jer.  xxiv.  7;  Zech.  ii.  5  [9];  viii.  8,  etc.)  Is  there 
not  a  presumption  that  this  oft-repeated  /  will  he  is  akin  to  the 
rrrij^  of  ver.  14,  and  that  the  latter  must  also  mean,  not  /  will 
exist,  but  /  will  be — something  which  lies  implicitly  on  the  mind 
of  him  who  uses  the  name  ?  In  this  case  it  is  possible  with  K. 
Jehuda  and  A.  ben  Ezra  to  take  the  nTlt^  l^i^  as  an  apposition, 
but  it  seems  more  reasonable  to  think  that  the  added  n\"!t5  "ItJ^N, 
I  will  be  what  I  will  be,  expresses  more  distinctly  the  fact  that  the 
predicate  is  vague.  The  construction,  in  fact,  is  in  principle 
analogous  to  the  well-knowoi  idiom  yj^tJ^n  VD^  to  express  the 
indefinite  subject.  The  relative  clause  is  without  emphasis — as 
appears  from  the  parallels  cited  above,  and  the  sense  is  not  that 
God  reserves  for  His  own  arbitrium  to  determine  what  He  will 
be,  but  simply  that  what  He  will  be  to  His  people  He  will  be, 
will  approve  Himself  to  be,  without  fail.  The  vagueness  is 
inevitable,  for  no  words  can  sum  up  all  that  Jehovah  will  be  to 
His  people  ;  it  is  enough  for  them  to  know  that  He  will  be  it 
(comp.  Isa.  Ixiv.  3  ;  Lam.  iii.  23).  On  this  view  the  clause  is 
exactly  parallel  to  Exod.  xxxiii.  19,  which  does  not  mean  that 
God  will  choose  the  objects  of  His  grace  arbitrarily,  but  that  to 
those  to  whom  He  is  gracious — who  they  are  is  left  vague — He 
will  be  gracious.  I  am  disposed  to  think  that  this  exegesis  of 
the  passage  is  as  old  as  Hosea  iii.  9,  where  the  words,  "  I  will  not 
be  for  you,"  seem  to  be  chosen  in  direct  contrast  to  the  promise, 
"  I  will  save  Judah  in  the  quality  of  lahwe  their  God."  It 
must  of  course  be  remembered  that  Exod.  iii.  14  does  not  give 
the  original  sense  of  the  name  lahwe,  which  is  still  obscure 
(0.  T.  in' J.  Ch.,  p.  423  ;  comj)are  Delitzsch,  TVo  lag  das  Para- 
dies  ?  p.  158  seq.,  and  the  reply  of  Tiele,  TheoL  Tijd.,  1882,  p.  262 
seq.),  but  an  adaptation  of  the  name,  so  that  we  need  not  be  sur- 
prised to  find  a  little  awkwardness  in  the  expression. 

Note  11,  p.  64. — This  monument  may  now  be  seen  in  the 
Louvre.  "Let  them,"  says  Eshmunazar,  "have  no  bed  with 
the  shades,  and  let  them  not  be  buried  in  a  grave,  nor  let  there 
be  to  them  son  or  seed  in  their  stead,  and  let  the  holy  gods 
deliver  them  into  the  hand  of  a  powerful  kingdom  ...  let 
them  have  no  root  downward  or  fruit  upward  (comp.  Isa. 
xxxvii.  31),  nor  any  comeliness  among  the  living  under  the  sun." 
— G.  I.  S.,  lit  siqn-a,  No.  3.  The  Authorised  Version  of  the  Bible 
unfortunately  obliterates  the  characteristic  ideas  of  the  "  under- 
world" (Sheol)  and  the  "  shades"  (Kephaiin).     In  Isa.  xiv.  9,  for 


388  THE   WORD  lect.  ii. 

example,  the  former  word  is  rendered  "hell,"  and  the  latter 
"  dead." 

Note  12,  p.  72. — A  reference  may  here  be  added  to  the  latest 
discussion  of  the  derivatives  of  the  root  QDK  by  Prof.  Kautzsch 
of  Tiibingen  (Festeinladting,  6  Marz  1881),  who  concludes  that 
the  fundamental  idea  of  the  root  is  conformitij  to  a  norm.  Even 
this,  perhaps,  is  too  wide,  and  does  not  lay  sufficient  weight  on 
the  distinctly  forensic  element  which  the  author  recognises  as 
preponderant  in  the  earlier  Hebrew  writings.  The  roots  pTi 
and  yj^"l  are  correlatives,  and  ought  to  be  taken  together.  All 
the  other  uses  of  the  derivatives  of  (^DK  may,  I  think,  be 
traced  from  the  primitive  forensic  sense  ;  but  the  more  complex 
developments  belong  to  a  later  period  than  that  covered  by  the 
present  volume.  Prof.  Kautzsch  is  certainly  right  in  declining 
to  start  from  the  very  doubtful  considerations  of  etymology  often 
put  in  the  front,  and  especially  from  the  obscure  Arabic  phrase 
rumh  gadq. 

Note  13,  p.  75. — The  Biblical  narrative  is  here  supple- 
mented by  the  "  Moabite  Stone"  erected  by  King  Mesha. 

Note  14,  p.  79. — The  sources  for  the  history  of  Elijah  are 
not  all  of  one  date,  and  do  not  all  reproduce  with  equal  imme- 
diacy the  aspect  in  which  his  work  presented  itself  to  his  con- 
temporaries. See  Wellhausen's  edition  of  Bleek's  Einleitung, 
and  the  article  Kings,  Books  of,  in  the  forthcoming  volume  of 
the  Encijdopcedia  Britannica. 

Note  15,  p.  81. — In  Hosea  vi.  5  for  TlX  T'DD^D  read  with 
LXX.  "11^53  "'DDK^D. 

Note  16,  p.  84. — On  wine  and  wine-drinking  among  the 
Arabs  before  Islam,  see  especially  I.  Guidi,  Delia  Sede  primitiva 
dei  popoli  Semitici  (Rome,  1879),  p.  43  seq.  Like  all  barbarians, 
the  Arabs  were  fond  enough  of  getting  drunk,  but  wine  was  a 
foreign  and  costly  luxury,  and  the  opposition  to  its  use  found 
distinguished  advocates  before  Mohammed.  Among  the  Naba- 
tseans  of  the  Syrian  desert,  according  to  Diodorus  (xix.  94,  3),  it 
was  a  law  neither  to  sow  nor  to  plant  any  fruit-bearing  plant, 
nor  to  use  wine,  nor  to  construct  a  house,  and  death  was  the 
penalty  of  disobedience.     See  also  Ammianus,  xiv.  4. 

Note  1 7, p. 85. — SeeG.  Hoffmann,  Verhandluiujen der  Kirchen- 
versammlung  zu  Epliesus,  etc.,  Kiel,  1873,  p.  89;  "  6ar  naggdre 
is  not  the  son  of  a  carpenter,  but  a  carpenter  as  member  of  the 
incorporation."     The  current  notion  that  the  prophets  were  not 


LECT.  II.  NABL  389 

a  guild  is  derived  from  too  exclusive  attention  to  the  prophets 
of  the  school  that  arose  with  Amos  and  expressly  disclaimed 
connection  with  the  established  guilds.  In  Jerusalem,  as  we  see 
from  Jeremiah,  the  prophets  were  under  a  certain  official  control 
on  the  part  of  the  priests. 

Note  18,  p.  86. — The  etymological  sense  of  the  Hebrew 
imhi  is  much  disputed.  It  must  be  observed  that  there  is 
nothing  in  extant  Hebrew  literature  by  which  it  can  be  deter- 
mined, for  Exod.  iv.  16  ;  ^di  1  ;  Jer.  xv.  19,  cannot  be  taken  as 
giving  the  meaning  of  the  w^ord,  or  as  proving  that  it  ever 
meant  a  speaker  or  interpreter  in  general,  but  only  as  evidence 
how  the  function  of  the  prophet  in  relation  to  God  was  con- 
ceived among  the  Israelites.  Nabt,  in  the  Old  Testament, 
always  has  the  technical  sense  of  a  prophet,  and  the  other 
derivatives  of  the  root  {nihha  and  hithnabbe,  prophesy)  are 
denominatives  formed  from  nabt.  The  word,  in  short,  has  no 
root  in  Hebrew  of  the  historical  period,  and  we  must  suppose 
either  that  it  has  survived  from  very  remote  antic|uity  or  that 
it  is  a  loan  word.  It  is  not,  however,  like  JcShm,  "  priest,"  a 
common  Semitic  term ;  the  other  Semitic  dialects  have  certainly 
borrowed  it  from  the  Hebrews  (Noldeke,  Gesch.  d.  Qorans,  p.  1). 
Thus  it  belongs  to  an  isolated  sphere  of  Semitic  religious  life ; 
and  as  the  Nebi'im  were  common  to  Israel  and  the  worshippers 
of  Baal,  while  according  to  1  Sam.  ix.  9  ndbt  superseded  the 
old  Hebrew  term  ro'eh  after  the  time  of  Samuel,  it  is  hardly 
likely  that  the  word  is  older  than  the  settlement  of  the  Hebrews 
in  Canaan.  This  circumstance,  taken  with  the  fact  that  the 
root  is  not  otherwise  found  in  Hebrew,  certainly  favours  the 
view  of  several  recent  inquirers  that  the  name  is  of  Canaanite 
origin.  In  this  case  the  etymology  becomes  comparatively  un- 
important, and  in  any  case  the  origin  of  the  name  lies  too 
remote  from  the  historical  development  of  Hebrew  prophecy  to 
be  of  value  in  illustration  of  the  conception  of  a  prophet  among 
the  Israelites. 

As  regards  the  meaning  of  the  root,  it  is  hardly  doubtful 
that  the  ultimate  stem  is  NB  with  the  notion  of  iwotnmon 
(Fleischer  in  Delitzsch's  Genesis,  4th  ed.  p.  552),  and  so  the  Taj 
eV Arils  (i.  131)  remarks  that  nabaa^ala,  in  the  sense  of  hajama 
watalda,  is  interchangeable  with  nabaha  and  nahda.  But 
this  fundamental  idea  not  only  divided  itself  under  a  variety 
of  triliteral  roots  ;  the  root  naba\(,  itself,  according  to  the  Arabic 


300  THE  WORD  NABI.  lect.  ii. 

lexicographers,  has  very  various  meanings,  among  which  it  is 
difficvilt  to  find  one  that  can  be  regarded  as  central.  Thus, 
when  Kuenen  {Onderzoeh,  ii.  3  ;  comp.  Godsdiend,  chap.  iii.  note, 
and  Frojjhets,  p.  42)  selects  the  notion  of  huhhlmg  up,  and 
regards  the  prophet  as  one  who  bubbles  up  under  inspiration, 
this  hypothesis  has  no  more  value  than  that  of  a  guess  guided 
by  the  particular  development  of  the  root  idea  found  in  "[2^  and 
])2^.  The  most  interesting  etymological  question  is  whether 
7idbi  may  not  originally  mean  simply  a  "  speaker"  or  "  herald" 
of  God.  This  view  is  supported  mainly  from  the  Arabic  by 
Ewald  (Propheten,  i.  V),  Fleischer  {ut  supra),  and  many  others, 
while  Hupfeld  {Z.  f.  d.  K.  des  Morgenl,  iii.  40)  and  Eiehm  (Mess, 
JVeiss.,  p.  21),  also  starting  from  the  Arabic,  take  the  view,  less 
accordant  with  the  grammatical  form  of  the  word,  that  the  ndbt 
is  one  to  whom  God  whispers  His  revelation.  Kuenen  {Prophets, 
p.  42),  in  opposing  the  argument  from  the  Arabic,  goes  so  far  as 
to  say  that  the  Arabic  verb  is  probably  derived  from  ndhi, 
and  so  is  a  Hebrew  loan  word.  I  presume  that  he  does  not 
mean  to  deny  that  there  is  a  real  Arabic  root  naha'a  with  the 
sense  of  prominevce,  imyetus,  etc.,  but  only  refers  to  the  use  of 
Conjugations  II.,  IV.,  in  tbe  sense  of  "  tell"  (akhbara),  and  to  the 
nom.  act.  of  Conj.  I.  explained  by  Icliabar,  news.  And  no  doubt 
the  usage  of  the  Koran  is  to  reserve  these  words  for  divine  or 
supernatural  communications,  and  Eagheb,  cited  at  length  in  the 
Taj  el  ''AriU,  explains  that  naV  is  not  to  be  used  of  any  khabar, 
but  is  confined  to  announcements  that  are  valuable  and  promote 
knowledge  and  are  certain  truth,  like  the  word  of  God  and  His 
prophet.  Yet  it  seems  impossible  to  treat  Conj.  II.  as  a  mere 
theological  term  derived  from  the  Hebrew.  Even  in  the  Koran 
(Ixvi.  3)  it  is  used  in  a  wider  sense,  and,  what  is  more  important, 
it  is  so  found  in  old  Arabic,  e.g.  in*Antara  {MoalL,  1.  61  of  Arnold's 
ed,,  or  1.  68  of  Ahlwardt's  Divans,  p.  48).  This  circumstance 
adds  importance  to  the  fact  that  in  Assyrian  nahD,  means  to 
"announce,"  Delitzsch,  Ass.  Lesestiicke,  2d  ed.  (1878),  p.  3. 
Nab' at,  "  a  gentle  sound"  (Harith,  Moall,  1.  11,  and  Tdj  el  "Arils 
i.  131,  foot),  is  also  an  old  word.  It  cannot,  however,  be  said 
that  the  sense  "  speaker,"  or  "  newsbringer,"  is  as  yet  established 
as  the  etymological  meaning  of  nabi. 

Note  19,  p.  86. — From  1  Sam.  x.  5,  10  seq.  ;  xix.  20  seq.,  we 
see  that  the  nebt'hn  at  their  first  appearance  in  Israel  formed 
bands  or  companies.     Their   "  prophesying "  was  a  joint  act ; 


THE  NEBIIM.  391 


Samuel,  in  xix.  20,  stands  presiding  over  them,  precisely  like  the 
sheikh  in  a  zikr  of  Dervishes,  Further,  these  exercises  were 
sometimes  gone  through  in  sacred  processions,  sometimes  at  a 
fixed  place,  as  at  the  Naioth  at  Eamah,  which  ought  probably  to 
be  rendered  "dwellings" — a  sort  of  coenobium.  They  were 
accompanied  by  music  of  a  somewhat  noisy  character,  in  which 
the  hand-drum  and  pipe  played  a  part,  as  was  otherwise  the  case 
in  festal  processions  to  the  sanctuary  (2  Sam.  vi.  5  ;  Isa.  xxx.  29). 
Thus  the  religious  exercises  of  the  prophets  seem  to  be  a  develop- 
ment in  a  peculiar  direction  of  the  ordinary  forms  of  Hebrew 
worship  at  the  time,  and  the  fact  that  the  "  prophesying "  was 
contagious  establishes  its  analogy  to  other  contagious  forms  of 
religious  excitement.  That  Saul  under  the  influence  of  these 
exercises  stripped  off  his  clothes,  and  so  joined  in  the  prophesy- 
ing, is  precisely  identical  with  what  Ibn  Khallikan  (ed.  Slane, 
p.  610  ;  Eng.  Tr.  ii.  538)  relates  of  Kukubury,  that  he  used, 
under  the  influence  of  religious  music,  to  become  so  excited  as  to 
pull  off  part  of  his  clothes.  It  does  not  seem  that  at  this  early 
time  the  prophetic  exercises  necessarily  involved  any  gift  of  pro- 
phecy in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  but  it  was  recognised 
that  "  a  divine  spirit"  (riV-h  elohtm)  came  upon  those  who  par- 
ticipated in  them  ;  Saul  was,  as  an  Arab  would  now  say,  malbtis. 
The  connection  of  music  with  the  prophetic  inspiration  is  still 
found  in  the  time  of  Elisha  (2  Kings  iii.  15). 

The  exercises  of  the  prophets  of  Baal,  as  described  in  1  Kings 
xviii.,  were  much  more  violent  and  ecstatic.  They  correspond 
exactly  with  the  later  descriptions  of  the  fantastic  enthusiasm  of 
the  wandering  priests  of  the  Syrian  goddess  given  by  Apuleius, 
Metam.  lib.  viii.,  and  Lucian,  Asinus,  c.  37.  These  priests  cor- 
respond to  the  helabtm  (literally  "  dogs")  of  the  Phoenician  sanc- 
tuaries (C.  /.  S.,  No.  86),  and  of  Deut.  xxiii.  18,  who  again  are 
the  same  with  the  kedeshtm  of  1  Kings  xv.  12  ;  2  Kings  xxiii.  7. 
At  the  time  of  Josiah's  reformation  these  wretched  creatures  had 
dwellings  in  the  temple. 


Lecture  III. 

Note  1,  p.  91. — The  vagueness  of  2  Kings  xiii.  5  is  not  an 
isolated  phenomenon.  Amos  never  mentions  the  Assyrians  by 
name,  though  he  plainly  alludes  to  them,  as  at  vi.  14.      So,  too, 


392  ISAIAH  XV.  XVI.  lect.  hi. 

Wellhausen  (Bleek's  Einl.,  4th  ed.  p.  251  seq)  remarks  that  the 
cause  of  the  sudden  raising  of  the  siege  of  Samaria  (2  Kings  vii. 
6)  can  have  been  nothing  else  than  an  invasion  of  the  Damascene 
territory  by  the  Assyrians  ;  but  the  Hebrew  narrator  plainly  did 
not  know  this. 

Note  2, p. 91. — The  "torrent  of  the^Arabah,"  in  Amos  vi.  14, 
is  identical  with  the  brook  of  the  *Arabim,  or  willows  (Arabic 
gharab;  Celsius,  Tlieroftoi.,  i.  304  seq,  ;  I  can  testify  from  personal 
observation  that  a  tree  of  this  name  is  still  common  in  the  Zor 
of  the  Jordan  valley),  the  southern  boundary  between  Moab  and 
Amnion.  The  sea  of  the  *  Arabah  in  2  Kings  xiv.  25  is,  of  course, 
the  Dead  Sea,  the  *Arabah  (A.  V.  "  Wilderness")  being  the  great 
depressed  trough  in  which  the  Jordan  flows  and  the  Dead  Sea  lies. 

Note  3,  p.  92. — Isaiah  closes  his  citation  with  the  words : 
"  This  is  the  word  that  Jehovah  spake  concerning  Moab  long 
ago.  And  now  within  three  short  years  [comp.  xxi.  16]  the 
glory  of  Moab  shall  be  brought  to  contempt,"  etc.  Isaiah  pre- 
sumably cited  the  old  prophecy  at  some  period  of  revolt  against 
Assyria,  most  likely  in  the  great  rising  against  Sennacherib, 
when,  however,  Moab  made  voluntary  submission  after  the  fall 
of  the  Plioenician  cities  {suj>ra,  p.  322  ;  G.  Smith,  Hist,  of  Senna- 
cherib, p.  55).  That  the  prophet  quoted  by  Isaiah  is  Jonah  is  a 
conjecture  of  Hitzig  (Des  proph.  Jonas  Orahel  iiber  Moab,  u.s.w., 
1831  ;  Der  Prophet  Jesaia,  1833,  p.  178  seq.).  See  also  Cheyne's 
Prophecies  of  Isaiah. 

Note  4,  p.  94. — I  transcribe,  by  way  of  illustration,  a  pass- 
age from  Sprenger's  Alte  Geographic  Arabiens,  p.  213,  referring 
to  the  Druses.  "  The  government  is  a  patriarchal  aristocracy. 
The  common  people  are  distinguished  by  industry,  the  here- 
ditary aristocracy  by  chivalry  and  disinterestedness,  and  both  by 
a  frugality  bordering  on  asceticism.  The  individual  is  lost  in 
the  tribe,  and  within  the  community  a  rigid  observance  of  the 
laws  of  morality  is  enforced.  .  .  .  The  people  have  the  most 
absolute  confidence  in  their  leaders,  who  are  not  without  educa- 
tion, and  obey  their  smallest  sign.  ...  By  such  institutions  the 
Druses  have  been  able  to  effect  brilliant  military  successes,  and 
fill  their  neighbours  with  a  sort  of  superstitious  belief  that 
they  are  invincible.  .  .  .  There  have  always  been  such  tribes  with 
military  organisation  in  Arabia,  and  such  are  still  the  Dhu 
Mohammed  and  Dhu  Hoseyn  spoken  of  by  Maltzan."  See 
Maltzan,  Eeisen  in  Arabien,  ii.  404  seq. 


LECT.  III.  SOLOMON.  393 

Note  5,  p.  95. — Saul  governed  essentially  as  a  Benjamite, 
and  his  court  consisted,  at  least  mainly,  of  men  of  his  own  tribe 
(1  Sam.  xxii.  7).  David's  original  jjolicy  was  more  enlarged. 
He  chose  a  capital  with  no  tribal  connection,  formed  a  foreign  body- 
guard, and  showed  no  exceptional  favour  to  his  own  tribe,  as  is 
clear  from  the  fact  that  the  men  of  Judah  were  the  first  to  rebel 
under  Absalom,  and  the  last  to  return  to  obedience.  In  fact, 
David  had  to  win  them  over  by  a  promise  that  he  would  in 
future  recognise  their  position  as  his  brethren  (2  Sam.  xix.  1 2, 
13).  Under  Solomon  the  Judieans  continued  to  enjoy  special 
favour.  They  did  not  share  the  discontent  of  Northern  Israel, 
and  the  chief  mark  of  their  favoured  position  is  that,  in  1  Kings 
iv.  7  se(?.,  Judah  is  exempted  from  the  system  of  non-tribal 
government — essentially  for  purposes  of  taxation — applied  in 
the  other  parts  of  Canaan.  It  is  quite  clear,  too,  from  1  Kings 
V.  13  ;  xi.  28  (where  for  charge  read  burden,  with  reference  to 
the  forced  labour  employed  in  the  repair  of  the  city  of  David) 
that  Solomon  did  not  exempt  Israelites  from  forced  labour,  as 
2  Chron.  viii.  9  supposes.  The  system  of  government  by  rulers 
of  provinces — that  is,  the  system  of  centralisation,  destructive  of 
old  tribal  organisation — reappears  in  the  time  of  Ahab  (1  Kings 
XX.  14:  seq).  The  word  "provinces"  is  rather  Aramaic  than 
Hebrew,  which  may  point  to  an  influence  of  foreign  models  on 
the  organisation  of  the  state. 

Note  6,  p.  98. — See  on  all  these  points  Old  Test  in  J.  Ch., 
Lect.  viii.,  p.  223  seq. 

Note  7,  p.  110. — See  0.  T.  in  J.  Ch.,  Lect.  xi.,  p,  336  seq. 

It  is  strange  that  a  sound  Hebraist  like  Prof.  W.  H.  Green 
{Presh.  Rev.,\\\.  123)  should  still  maintain  that  Exod.  xx.  24  refers, 
not  to  co-existing  sanctuaries  in  Canaan,  but  to  altars  succes- 
sively reared  at  different  places  in  the  wilderness,  and  even 
assert  that  the  Authorised  Version  "  in  all  places "  does  not 
accurately  represent  the  Hebrew.  The  Authorised  Version  is 
perfectly  accurate,  and  the  idiom  quite  common,  Exod.  i.  22  ; 
Dent.  iv.  3  ;  1  Sam.  iii.  17  ;  Jer.  iv.  29  ;  Ewald,  Xc/«r6.,  290  c. 
But  the  climax  of  absurdity  is  reached  when  Prof.  Green  regards 
this  law,  with  its  express  provision  that  if  an  altar  is  built  of 
stone  it  shall  not  be  of  hewn  stone,  as  referring  to  the  earth 
with  which  the  frame  of  the  brazen  altar  was  filled.  So,  again, 
it  is  suggested  that  Exod.  xxii.  30  may  have  been  a  law  only  for 
the  wilderness  journey,  when  all  Israel  was  encamped  in  the 
18 


394  AMOS.  LECT.  III. 

vicinity  of  the  tabernacle.  But  it  is  certain  that  there  was  no 
regular  sacrificial  observance  in  the  wilderness  (Amos  v.  25  ; 
Jer.  vii.  22),  and  the  whole  law  to  which  Exod.  xxii.  30  belongs 
is  on  the  face  of  it  a  law  for  Canaan ;  the  offering  of  the  firstlings 
on  the  eighth  day  is  only  part  of  an  ordinance  embracing  also 
the  first-fruits  of  cereals  and  liquors  (ver.  29).  How  Prof.  Green 
can  possibly  deny  that  the  asylum  in  Exod.  xxi.  12-14  is  the 
altar,  and  that  in  Deuteronomy  the  idea  of  asylum-cities  is 
separated  from  connection  with  the  sanctuary,  I  do  not  under- 
stand. 

Note  8,  p.  119. — For  the  interpretation  of  this  most  im- 
portant chapter  see  especially,  in  addition  to  the  commentaries 
on  Deuteronomy,  Graf,  Der  Segen  Moseys,  Leipzig,  1857  ;  Well- 
hausen,  Geschichte,  i.  266,  376.  In  verse  2  the  text  must  be 
corrected  as  suggested  by  Ewald,  Gesch.,  ii.  280,  so  as  to  read, 
"  came  to  (from  ?)  Meribath  Kadesh." 

Note  9,  p.  120. — With  the  exception  of  Vater's  Amos 
(Halle,  1810)  and  the  lengthy  work  of  G.  Baur  (Giessen,  1847), 
the  recent  commentaries  on  Amos  are  incorporated  in  books  on 
the  prophets  in  general  or  on  the  minor  prophets.  Among 
modern  English  works  Prof.  Gandell's  Amos  in  the  Sj^eaker's 
Commentary  closely  follows  Dr.  Pusey's  Minor  Prophets.  The 
prophet  is  also  included  in  the  second  volume  of  Heilprin's 
Historical  Poetry  of  the  Ancient  Hebrews  (New  York,  1880).  Of 
German  commentaries  those  of  Ewald,  Keil,  and  SchmoUer  (in 
Lange's  Bibelwerh)  are  translated.  The  most  influential  modern 
commentaries  have  been  those  of  Ewald  {Propheten^  vol.  i.),  and 
Hitzig  in  his  Klelne  Propheten,  of  which  the  last  edition  by 
Steiner  (1881)  contains  little  new  matter  of  consecpence.  Of 
the  older  commentaries  that  of  Le  Mercier  (Mercerus)  is  the 
most  valuable.  There  have  been  a  good  many  recent  discussions 
of  individual  questions,  especially  of  the  difficult  passage,  v.  26, 
which  will  be  alluded  to  below.  See  also  the  section  on  Amos 
in  Duhni's  Theologie  der  Propheten  (Bonn,  1875)  ;  an  essay,  con- 
taining a  great  deal  that  is  arbitrary,  by  Oort,  Theol.  Tijdsch., 
1880,  p.  114  seq.  ;  Noldeke's  valuable  article  in  Schenkel's  Bihel- 
lexikon ;  and  the  excellent  remarks  of  Wellhausen,  Encyc.  Brit., 
xiii.  410.      I  have  not  seen  Juynboll,  Disp.  de  Amoso,  1828. 

Note  10,  p.  120. — If  we  could  venture  to  suppose  that  1 
Chron.  ii.  24,  iv.  5  refer  to  the  settlement  of  Judah  before  the 
Exile,  we  should  gather  that  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  Tekoa 


LECT.  III.  TEKOAH.  395 

were  not  pure  Hebrews,  but  belonged  to  the  Hezronites,  nomads 
from  the  desert  who  had  settled  down  in  the  southern  part  of 
the  land  of  Judah.  In  this  case  we  should  have  an  interesting 
line  of  connection  between  the  kinship  of  Amos  and  the  Kenite 
family  of  the  Eechabites,  who  gave  their  support  to  Jehu  in  the 
interests  of  ancient  nomadic  simplicity.  The  analysis  of  Well- 
hausen,  however,  T)e  Gentibus  et  Familiis  Judccis,  1870,  makes 
it  probable  that  the  connection  of  the  Hezronites  with  the  dis- 
trict of  Bethlehem  began  after  the  Exile,  when  their  older  seats 
in  the  south  had  been  occupied  by  the  Edomites.  On  Tekoa 
and  the  surrounding  district  see  especially  the  preface  to 
Jerome's  Coram,  in  Amos;  Eeland,  Palcestina,  vol.  ii.  p.  1028; 
HohldY^  Denkhlatter  aus  Jerusalem,  682  seq.;  'Rohinson,  Biblical 
Researches,  2d  ed.  p.  486  ;  Stickel,  Das  Buck  Hiob,  p.  269  seq., 
whose  remarks  on  the  active  movements  of  commerce  in  this 
district  serve,  as  Kuenen  has  pointed  out  {OnderzoeJc,  ii.  335),  to 
throw  light  on  the  range  of  the  prophet's  historical  and  geogra- 
phical knowledge.  The  idea  that  Amos  belonged  to  the  Northern 
Kingdom  and  to  some  other  and  unknown  Tekoa  (Gratz,  Oort, 
ut  supra)  is  quite  arbitrary.  That  Amos  has  a  thorough  know- 
ledge of  the  Northern  Kingdom  proves  nothing.  Oort's  most 
striking  argument  is  derived  from  the  mention  of  sycamore  cul- 
ture as  the  prophet's  occupation.  The  chief  home  of  this  tree 
was  certainly  in  the  plains,  especially  in  the  low  country  on  the 
Mediterranean  coast  (1  Kings  x.  27  ;  compare  the  notice  of  a 
great  sycamore  grove  between  Eafah  and  Gaza  in  Yakut,  ii.  796)  ; 
and  Jerome  (on  Amos  vii.)  already  remarks  that  it  did  not  exist 
in  the  wilderness  of  Tekoa,  and  conjectures  that  the  bramble  is 
meant.  According  to  Tristram  {La7id  of  Israel,  p.  34),  it  seems 
only  to  be  found  "  on  the  sea-coast,  where  frost  is  unknown,  or  in 
the  still  warmer  Jordan  valley."  It  is,  however,  rather  daring  to 
affirm  that  the  sycamore  can  never  have  grown  in  the  vicinity  of 
Tekoa  or  between  Tekoa  and  the  Dead  Sea,  as  it  was  certainly 
widely  distributed  in  Palestine.  Compare  on  the  whole  subject 
Celsius,  Hierok,  i.  310;  Gesenius,  Thes.,  s.v. ;  Winer,  s.v.  "Maul- 
beerfeigenbaum  "  ;  and  especially  Warnekros  in  Eichhorn's  Reper- 
torium,  xi.  224  seq.  That  Amos  was  a  Judtean  is  clear  from  the 
way  in  which  he  alludes  to  the  sanctuary  of  Zion,  i.  2. 

Note  11,  p.  124. — The  phrase  "eat  bread"  for  "earn  one's 
bread"  is  common  to  Hebrew  and  Arabic.  See  De  Goeje's 
glossary  to  the  Bib.  Geog.  Arab.  (vol.  iv.  p.   180).     Mokaddasy 


396  DA  V  OF  lect.  hi. 

says,  "I  am  not  one  of  tliose  who  eat  their  loaf  by  their  know- 
ledge." Thus  Amaziah  distinctly  treats  prophecy  as  a  trade  by 
which  men  live. 

Note  12,  p.  125. — That  the  text  in  both  these  passages  is 
corrupt  hardly  admits  of  doubt.  With  regard  to  iv.  3  this  is 
generally  admitted ;  for  ix.  1  see  Lagarde,  Anm.  zur  Gr.  Ueh.  cl. 
Proverhien.,  p.  v.  In  some  other  places  there  are  irregular  spell- 
ings (vi.  8  ;  viii.  8 ;  v.  11 ;  comp.  Wellh.  in  Bleek,  p.  633),  which 
must  rather  be  put  to  the  account  of  transcribers  than  taken  as 
indications  of  dialectic  peculiarities  of  the  prophet,  and  probably 
there  may  be  one  or  two  other  passages  where  LXX.  has  pre- 
served better  readings,  but  Oort  {ut  supra)  goes  too  far  in  the 
numerous  corrections  he  introduces.  The  text  is  on  the  \vhole 
in  an  unusually  good  state,  nor  can  I  see  that  there  is  evidence 
of  such  extensive  interpolations  as  Duhm,  Oort,  and  even  Well- 
hausen  assume  {infra,  note  18). 

Note  13,  p.  126. — An  interesting  example  of  this  will  be 
found  in  Ibn  Khallikan's  article  on  Ibn  al-Kirriya  (p.  121,  or  i. 
236  seq.  of  the  English  translation). 

Note  14,  p.  128. — On  the  origin  and  date  of  the  several 
parts  of  this  tableau  of  the  geography  (not  the  ethnography)  of 
the  Hebrews  see,  in  addition  to  the  commentaries,  De  Goeje  in 
the  Theol  Tijdschrlft,  1870,  p.  233  scq.,  and  Wellhausen  in 
Jahrh.  f.  D.  Theol,  1876,  p.  395  seq.  The  problems  of  the 
chapter  are  still  far  from  being  conclusively  solved,  and  De 
Goeje,  for  example,  is  disposed  to  regard  the  parts  of  the  chapter 
which  are  not  from  the  hand  of  the  main  author  as  later 
additions.  But  it  is  more  probable  that  Wellhausen  is  right  in 
assigning  them  to  the  earlier  history  JE.  The  verses  which  he 
regards  as  most  ancient  are  8-19,  21,  25-30.  The  distant 
northern  nations  of  Japhet  mentioned  in  the  later  part  of  Gen. 
X.  are  not  known  to  Amos. 

Note  15,  p.  132.  —  The  current  idea  that  the  day  of 
Jehovah  is  primarily  a  day  of  judgment,  or  assize-day,  is  con- 
nected with  the  opinion  that  the  earliest  prophecy  in  which  the 
idea  occurs  is  that  of  Joel.  See,  for  example,  Ewald,  Fropheten, 
i.  90  seq.  But  if  the  book  of  Joel,  as  there  is  reason  to  believe 
(see  Encijc.  Brit,  s.v.),  is  really  one  of  the  latest  prophetical  books, 
Amos  V.  18  is  the  fundamental  passage,  and  here  the  idea 
appears,  not  as  peculiar  to  the  prophet,  but  as  a  current  popular 
notion,  which  Amos  criticises  and,  so  to  speak,  turns  upside  down. 


LECT.  III.  JEHOVAH,  397 

The  popular  idea  in  question  cannot  have  been  that  of  a  day  of 
judicial  retribution;  the  day  which  the  men  of  Ephraim  ex- 
pected must  have  been  a  day  of  national  deliverance,  and,  from 
the  whole  traditions  of  the  warlike  religion  of  old  Israel,  presum- 
ably a  day  of  victory  like  the  "day  of  Midian  "  (Isa.  ix.  4).  The 
last  cited  passage  shows  that  among  the  Hebrews,  as  among  the 
Arabs,  the  word  "day"  is  used  in  the  definite  sense  of  "day  of 
battle."  Illustrations  of  the  Arabic  idiom  have  been  collected 
by  Gesenius  on  Isa.  ix.  and  Schultens  on  Job,  p.  54,  to  which 
may  be  added  a  reference  to  the  section  on  the  "Days  of  the 
Arabs"  in  the  "lU  of  Ibn 'Abd  Eabbih,  Egyptian  ed.,  iii.  60 
se(?.  The  "days"  of  the  Arabs  often  derive  their  name  from  a 
place,  but  may  equally  be  named  from  the  combatants,  e.(/., 
"the  days  of  Tamim  against  Bekr"  C//of/,p.  80).  By  taking  the 
day  of  Jehovah  to  mean  His  day  of  battle  and  victory  we  gain 
for  the  conception  a  natural  basis  in  Hebrew  idiom.  The  same 
idea  seems  still  to  preponderate  in  Isa.  ii.,  and  is  quite  clearly 
seen  in  many  later  prophecies.  That  the  day  of  Jehovah's 
might  is  not  necessarily  a  day  of  victory  to  Israel  over  foreign 
powers,  but  a  day  in  which  His  righteousness  is  vindicated 
against  the  sinners  of  Israel  as  well  as  of  the  nations,  is  the 
characteristic  prophetic  idea  due  to  Amos,  and  from  this  thought 
the  notion  of  the  day  of  judgment  was  gradually  developed. 

Note  16,  p.  135.  —  Offences  against  the  dead  appear  to 
antiquity  as  among  the  gravest  breaches  of  natural  piety,  as  is 
well  known  from  the  story  of  Antigone.  The  same  feeling 
finds  frequent  expression  in  the  Old  Testament  (Deut.  xxi.  23  ; 
Josh.  X.  27  ;  Ps.  Ixxix.  2,  3  ;  Jer.  xxxvi.  30).  The  feeling  is 
connected  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Underworld — "All  the  kings 
of  the  nations  lie  in  glory,  every  one  in  his  own  house  ;  but 
thou  art  cast  out  of  thy  grave  like  a  worthless  sapling — the  slain 
are  thy  covering,  pierced  through  with  the  sword,  who  go  down 
to  the  stones  of  the  pit — like  a  carcase  trodden  under  feet" 
(Isa.  xiv.  19).  The  curse  of  Eshmunazar  on  those  who  disturb 
his  grave  (siqyra,  p.  387)  is  a  pertinent  illustration.  Compare 
also  the  account  in  Jos.  Ant,  xvi.  7,  of  the  portents  which 
deterred  Herod  from  his  attempt  to  violate  the  grave  of  David, 
and  of  the  costly  monument  that  he  erected  by  way  of  expia- 
tion. The  attempt  was  deemed  so  unseemly  that  the  eulogist  of 
Herod,  Nicolaus  of  Damascus,  omitted  to  record  it  in  his  history. 

Note  17,  p.  135. — The  tablet  of  Marseilles  seems  to  show 


398  TEXT  OF 


that  among  tlie  Pliccnicians  fhe  whole  burnt-offering  was  used 
especially  in  supj^licating  the  favour  of  the  deity,  or  fts  an  excep- 
tional thankoffering  (Schroeder,  o^;.  dt).  So  it  appears  also  in  old 
Israel  (Judges  xi.  31  ;  1  Sam.  vii.  9  ;  2  Sam.  xxiv.  25).  Thus 
Amos  means  that  Jehovah  will  not  pay  regard  even  to  those 
offerings  which  were  regarded  as  of  special  importance  and  efficacy. 
Note  18,  p.  136. — Duhm,  Theolorjie  der  Fropheten,  p.  119, 
followed  by  Oort,  ut  supra,  p.  116,  proposes  to  reject  Amos 
ii.  4,  5,  as  a  Deuteronomistic  interpolation.  But  it  is  plain  that 
Amos  could  not  have  excepted  Judah  from  the  universal  ruin 
which  he  saw  to  threaten  the  whole  land,  or  at  all  events  such 
exception  would  have  required  to  be  expressly  made  on  special 
grounds.  Such  grounds  did  not  exist ;  for  in  vi.  1  the  nobles 
of  Juclah  and  Samaria  are  classed  together,  and  both  kingdoms 
are  mentioned  in  vi.  2.  Comp.  iii.  1,  where  all  who  came  up 
from  Egypt  are  included.  Nor  is  there  anything  suspicious  in 
the  language  used  about  Judah.  "  To  reject  the  Torah  of 
Jehovah"  is  a  pre-Deuteronomic  phrase,  Isa.  v.  24,  comp.  Hosea 
ii.  4,  "  thou  hast  rejected  knowledge ;"  and  "  the  statutes  of  God 
and  His  Torah  "  appear  together  just  as  in  our  passage  in  the 
undoubtedly  ancient  narrative,  Exod.  xviii.  16.  See  also  Deut. 
XXX.  10.  In  all  these  parallel  passages  the  reference  is  to 
ordinances  of  civil  righteousness,  and  such,  probably,  are  meant 
by  Amos.  It  is  therefore  a  second,  though  not  unconnected, 
offence  that  the  men  of  Judah  have  been  led  astray  by  the 
deceitful  superstitions  practised  by  their  ancestors.  This  again 
is  quite  a  natural  accusation,  for  in  Josh.  xxiv.  ancestral  super- 
stition appears  as  one  of  the  two  great  temptations  leading  the 
people  away  from  Jehovah.  The  worship  of  the  brazen  serpent 
is  an  instance  in  point,  and  Ezek.  viii.  10,  11  is  a  clear  proof  of 
the  survival  of  primitive  totemism  in  the  last  days  of  the  king- 
dom. The  connection  makes  it  probable  that  Amos  views  these 
superstitions  as  j^roducing  moral  obliquity.  That,  however,  is 
in  the  highest  degree  natural.  Observations  in  all  parts  of  the 
world  show  that  totemism  is  directly  connected  with  peculiar 
systems  of  social  ethic,  and  particularly  with  such  ]3ractices  as 
are  condemned  in  Lev.  xviii.,  and  were  still  common  in  the  time  of 
Ezekiel  (xxii.  10,  11).  Comp.  Joiirn.  of  Philology,  vol.  ix.  pp.  94, 
97.  Duhm  further  proposes  to  reject  as  later  additions  iv.  13  ; 
V.  8  seq.  ;  ix.  5,  6,  and  in  this  he  is  followed  not  only  by  Oort, 
but  by  Wellhausen,  Geschichte,  i.  349  seq.,  who  compares  these 


LECT.  III.  AMOS.  399 

passages  to  the  lyrical  intermezzi  celebrating  Jeliovali  as  Lord  of 
the  Universe,  which  characterise  Isa.  xl.-lxvi.,  and  argues  that 
Jehovah's  all-creating  power  acquires  a  sudden  prominence  in 
the  Exilic  literature  ;  Jehovah  becomes  Lord  of  the  World  when 
the  realm  of  Israel  falls  to  pieces.  It  may  be  conceded  that 
these  verses  are  not  closely  connected  with  the  movement  of  the 
prophet's  argument  in  detail  ;  but  they  are  thoroughly  appro- 
priate to  its  general  purport.  To  Amos  Jehovah  is  not  merely 
the  God  of  Israel,  and  Wellhausen  has  himself  observed  that  the 
prophet  studiously  avoids  the  use  of  this  familiar  title.  It  is 
true  that  the  universal  Godhead  of  Jehovah  appears  to  Amos 
rather  as  a  sovereignty  over  all  mankind  than  as  a  sovereignty 
over  the  mere  powers  of  nature.  He  uses  nature  as  a  factor  in 
history  as  a  means  of  dealing  with  man  ;  and  this  agrees  with 
the  older  account  of  creation  in  Gen.  ii.  But  undoubtedly 
Amos  teaches  that  all  nature  is  at  Jehovah's  command  for  the 
execution  of  His  moral  purpose  (vii.  4  ;  ix.  2  seq.,  etc.),  and  thus 
it  is  natural  that  the  prophet  should  make  occasional  direct 
appeal  to  that  lordship  over  nature  which  is  the  clearest  proof 
that  Jehovah's  purpose  is  wider  and  higher  than  the  mass  of 
Israel  supposed.  That  such  appeal  takes  an  ejaculatory  form  is 
not  surprising  under  the  general  conditions  of  prophetic  oratorv, 
and  in  each  case  the  appeal  comes  in  to  relieve  the  strain  of 
intense  feeling  at  a  critical  point  in  the  argument.  It  is  cer- 
tainly possible  that  v.  8,  9  originally  stood  in  direct  connection 
with  iv.  13  ;  but  even  this  transposition  rests  too  much  on 
merely  subjective  arguments  to  claim  general  accej)tance. 

Note  19,  p.  140. — In  this  verse  there  are  two  disputed 
points.  The  first  is  with  reference  to  the  tense  of  DHXI^JI.  See, 
besides  the  commentaries,  Merx  in  the  Bihel-lex.  s.  v.  "  Chiun  " ; 
Graf  in  Merx's  Arcliiv,  ii.  93  seq.  ;  Kleinert,  Bas  Deuteronomium 
(1872),  p.  Ill ;  Smend,  Moses  aimd  Prophetas,  p.  23  seq. ;  Driver, 
Hebrew  Tenses,  2d  ed.  p.  167;  and  references  to  discussions  of 
the  point  in  Holland  in  Oort,  ut  supra,  p.  145.  The  question  is 
whether  (a)  Amos  in  this  verse  describes  the  idolatry  of  the 
wilderness  (so  Hitzig,  De  Goeje,  Kuenen,  Merx,  Keil,  and  others), 
or  {b)  describes  the  present  services  of  the  Israelites  as  consist- 
ing of  a  carrying  about  of  certain  idolatrous  objects  in  sacred 
procession  (so  Kamphausen,  Schultz,  etc.),  or  (c)  predicts  that 
they  shall  have  to  carry  these  things  away  into  captivity  (so 
Rashi,  Ewald,  etc.).     The  question  of  the  consecution  of  tenses  is 


400  SIKKUTH  lect.  hi. 

complicated  by  tlie  fact  tliat  the  preceding  verb  is  an  interroga- 
tive, and  thus  De  Goeje  in  support  of  his  view  appeals  to  Job 
xxviii.  21,  n?:^7y2"l,  which,  however,  is  no  exact  parallel.  An 
allusion  to  the  sins  of  Israel  in  the  wilderness  would  be 
singularly  out  of  place  in  this  connection.  Amos,  like  the  other 
older  prophets,  regards  the  wilderness  journey  as  a  time  when 
Jehovah's  favour  was  specially  manifested  (ii.  10),  and  his  argu- 
ment is  that  this  favour  was  enjoyed  without  sacrifice.  Compare 
the  argument  of  the  Clementine  Homilies  (iii.  45),  that  "God  did 
not  desire  sacrifices,  for  He  slew  those  who  lusted  after  the  taste 
of  flesh  in  the  wilderness."  (Lightfoot,  Colossians,  p.  373.)  In 
point  of  fact  there  is  no  close  syntactical  connection  between 
V.  26  and  v.  25,  and  the  force  of  the  consecutive  Waw  is  rather  to 
be  determined  by  TlvJni  following,  which  is  a  true  future.  Thus 
the  captivity  of  the  idols  seems  to  be  alluded  to,  as  in  Isa.  xhd. 
1,  2.  It  was  a  known  practice  of  the  Assyrians  to  carry  off  the 
jmlladia  of  vanquished  cities,  and  the  captives  are  here  repre- 
sented as  compelled  to  bear  them. 

If,  now,  the  allusion  is  to  religious  institutions  of  the  pro- 
phet's own  time,  it  is  still  a  difficult  question  what  these  were. 
What  is  plain  is  that  the  allusion  is  to  astral  worship,  and  to 
idols,  the  work  of  man's  hands.  The  verse  contains  two  unique 
words  niDD  (A.  V.  tabernacle),  and  |V3  (A.  Y.  Chiun).  Are  these 
common  or  proper  names  ?  As  regards  tlie  first  the  whole 
weight  of  the  early  versions  supports  the  English  version,  and, 
as  the  form  in  HI  from  *]DD  may  be  an  abstract  used  as  a  con- 
crete, there  is  no  difficulty  in  supposing  a  reference  to  the  well- 
known  portable  chaj)els  or  tabernacles  of  Phoenician  worship 
(Diod.  XX.  14,  65  ;  comp.  2  Kings  xxiii.  7,  where  we  read  of 
women  who  wove  tents  for  the  Ashera),  and  it  is  not  necessary 
with  Ewald  to  compare  the  Syriac  selckttha,  "post."  With 
regard  to  the  second  word,  however,  where  the  Sej)tuagint  intro- 
duces a  problematic  Eaiphan,  or  Kephan,  there  is  an  early  vari- 
ation of  the  tradition.  Whether  the  Raiphan  of  the  oldest 
version  is  a  synonym  of  Saturn,  borrowed  from  the  Egyi^tians,  is 
highly  doubtful  ;  it  may  be  a  mere  error,  and  Theodotion  does 
not  take  the  word  as  a  proper  name.  But  the  Syriac  and 
perhaps  the  Tgm.  do  take  it  so,  and  both  Jewish  and  Syriac 
expositors  identify  it  with  Keiwdn,  Saturn.  According  to  Abul- 
walid,  most  Jewish  interpreters  took  this  view,  though  he  himself 
prefers  the  opinion,  essentially  that  of  most  recent  commentators, 


LECT.  IV.  AND  CHIUN.  401 

that  the  word  is  like  ni13D,  a  pedestal.  The  great  difficulty  is 
that  the  name  Keiwan  is  not  Semitic  (see  Fleischer  in  Levy, 
Chald.  TVcirt.,  i.  428),  but  j^robably  Persian.  So  too,  when 
Schrader  {Stud,  und  Krit.,  1874,  p.  324  seq.;  Riehm's  Handiv., 
i.  234  seq.)  will  have  it  that  niDD  is  Sakkuth,  an  epithet  of 
the  god  Adar,  we  are  met  by  the  difficulty  that  this  also  is  no 
Semitic  name,  but  so-called  Accadian  (Delitzsch  in  the  German 
transl.  of  Smith's  Genesis,  p.  274).  It  is  hardly  credible  that 
elements  of  Eastern  religion  not  common  to  all  Semites  could 
have  been  established  in  Israel  at  the  time  of  Amos,  or  that  the 
Adrammelech  (Adar),  the  introduction  of  whose  worship  is  re- 
corded in  2  Kings  xvii.  31,  was  known  before  that  time  under 
a  non-Semitic  name  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  identification 
of  |!i*3  with  Keiwan  naturally  suggested  itself  when  that  name 
of  Saturn  became  current  ;  but  this  interpretation  can  hardly 
have  existed  when  the  pronunciation  expressed  by  the  Massorets 
was  adopted.  That  our  word  may  be  the  source  of  the  Greek  Ktwv 
is  suggested  by  Hitz.  in  loc.  and  Lagarde,  Abhandlungen,  jj.  13. 

Note  20,  p.  140.— See  0.  T,  in  J.  Ck,  Lect.  xi.  p.  341,  and 
note  7. 

Lecture  IY. 

Note  1,  p.  145. — The  chronological  discussions  which  I 
have  felt  it  necessary  to  introduce  in  one  or  two  places  in  these 
Lectures  start  chiefly  from  the  results  obtained  by  Noldeke, 
Untersicchungen  zur  KritiJc  des  Alien  Testaments :  "  4,  Die  Chrono- 
logie  der  Eichterzeit,"  and  Wellhausen,  Jahrhh.  /.  Deutsche  Theo- 
logie,  1875,  p.  607  seq.  (compare  Bleek's  Einleitung,  4th  edition, 
p.  264  seq.  ;  Geschichle,  i.  287  ;  and  Krey,  Zeitsch.  f.  Wiss.  Thcol., 
1877,  p.  404  seq.).  The  observation  of  the  trisection  of  the  480 
and  240  periods  of  Judah  and  Ephraim,  by  w^hich  I  confirm  the 
sj^stematic  character  of  the  chronology  already  pointed  out  by 
these  scholars,  was  first  published  in  the  Journal  of  Philology,  x. 
209  seq.,  to  which  I  refer  for  various  details.  In-  several  notes 
to  the  present  volume  I  have  endeavoured  to  carry  further  the 
argument  there  opened.  The  material  for  the  Assyrian  syn- 
chronisms is  excellently  brought  together  by  G.  Smith,  The 
Assyrian  Eponym  Canon,  where  also  an  account  will  be  found 
of  various  proposals  for  harmonising  the  dates.  Another  attempt 
is  that  of  Oppert,  Salomon  et  ses  successeurs,  1877.     I  do  not 

2  D 


402  CHRONOLOGY  lect.  iv. 

accumulate  references  to  otlier  works,  because  it  appears  certain 
that  the  first  basis  of  a  sound  treatment  of  the  problem  is  the 
recognition  of  the  fact  long  ago  pointed  out  by  Ewald,  that  the 
synchronisms  of  Judah  and  Israel  are  not  independent  chrono- 
logical data  {infra,  note  2).  The  first  chronologer  who  has 
used  the  Assyrian  data  in  a  thoroughly  critical' spirit  is  therefore 
Ewald's  scholar  Wellhausen.  The  ordinary  schemes  of  harmo- 
nists are  mere  guesswork.  For  students  who  desire  to  look  into 
the  subject  for  themselves,  and  are  not  yet  familiar  with  the 
literature,  I  may  add  a  reference  to  Scaliger's  Thesaurus  Tem- 
porum;  Ussher's  Annals  of  the  World,  1658  (preceded  by  the  Latin 
Annales,  1650-54)  ;  and  G.  Syncellus,  Bonn  ed.,  i.  388  seq^.,  where 
the  famous  Canon  of  Ptolemy  is  preserved. 

Note  2,  p.  146.  —  In  fixing  on  this  particular  means  of 
harmonising  the  two  lines  chronologers  were  guided  by  the  so- 
called  synchronisms  or  cross  references  which  in  the  present 
text  of  the  books  of  Kings  occur  as  the  beginning  of  each  reign, 
to  the  effect  that  A,  king  of  Judah,  came  to  the  throne  in  such 
a  year  of  B,  king  of  Israel,  or  vice  versa.  Jeroboam  II.  is  said 
to  have  begun  his  reign  in  the  15th  year  of  Amaziah,  and  his 
son  Zachariah  succeeded  in  the  38th  year  of  Azariah.  Thus  the 
interval  between  the  two  accessions  is  52  years,  instead  of  41, 
which  is  explained  by  assuming  an  interregnum  of  1 1  years.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  are  told  that  Amaziah  lived  15  years  after  the 
death  of  Jehoash  or  the  accession  of  Jeroboam,  and  yet  the  accession 
of  Amaziah's  son  Azariah  is  placed  in  the  27th  year  of  Jeroboam  (2 
Kings  XV.  1).  In  other  words,  the  synchronisms  themselves  are 
not  exact,  and  the  right  to  use  them  as  a  key  to  the  chronology 
becomes  doubtful.  In  fact,  when  we  go  over  the  whole  series  of 
synchronisms,  as  has  been  done  at  length  by  Wellhausen  {Jahrh. 
f.  D.  Theol,  1875,  pp.  607  seq),  we  are  forced  to  the  conclusion 
that  they  are  not  inclependent  data,  furnishing  additional  material 
for  the  chronological  scheme,  but  have  simply  been  added  by  a 
later  hand,  who  calculated  them  out  so  as  to  harmonise  as  he  best 
could  the  already  discrepant  lines  of  the  Juda3an  and  Northern 
chronology.  This  view  was  expressed  by  Ewald  {GescJiichte,  iii. 
464),  and  subsequent  inquiry  has  fully  confirmed  its  correct- 
ness ;  for  not  only  are  the  synchronisms  full  of  such  inconsist- 
encies as  were  inseparable  from  the  task  of  harmonising  two 
sets  of  data  that  do  not  agree,  but  an  exact  examination  of  the 
text  shows  that  they  are  inserted  in  sucli  a  way  as  to  disturb  tlie 


OF  KINGS.  403 


natural  construction  of  the  sentences  in  which  they  occur.  See 
Wellhausen,  nt  supra,  p.  611.  For  chronological  purposes, 
therefore,  it  is  not  only  legitimate,  but  imperative,  to  ignore 
these  synchronisms,  and  for  simplicity's  sake  I  have  passed  them 
by  in  the  text  of  my  Lecture.  There  are  only  two  synchronisms 
of  which  account  must  be  taken,  viz.  the  contemporaneous  ac- 
cession of  Jehu  and  Athaliah,  and  the  siege  of  Samaria  from  the 
fourth  to  the  sixth  year  of  Hezekiah. 

Note,  3,  p.  148. — On  forty  as  a  round  number  see  Gesenius, 
Thesaurus,  p.  1258  seq,  ;  Lepsius,  Chr.  der  Aerjypt.,  i. 

Note  4,  p.  151. — The  precise  year  of  the  fall  of  Samaria  is 
still  open  to  dis23ute.  The  siege  began  under  Shalmaneser,  while 
the  conquest  is  claimed  by  Sargon.  The  data  which  determine 
Sargon's  first  year  have  given  rise  to  considerable  discussion,  and 
are  difficult  to  harmonise.  See  Schrader,  K.  A.  T.,-p.  158  seq.  ; 
Oppert  in  Records  of  the  Fast,  vii.  22,  28,  Smith  ;  Assyrian 
Eponym  Canon, -p-p.  125,  129,  174  ;  the  criticism  of  v.  Gutschmid, 
Neue  Beitrage,  lOl  seq. ;  and  Schrader  again  in  K.  G.  F.,  p.  313  seq. 
It  seems  pretty  certain,  however,  that  Sargon  came  to  the  throne 
in  722,  and  reckoned  721  as  his  first  year.  He  records  the 
siege  and  capture  of  Samaria  together,  as  happening  in  the 
beginning  of  his  reign,  apparently  distinguishing  this  from  his 
first  year,  when  he  was  occupied  with  a  revolt  in  Babylonia. 
This  leaves  it  uncertain  whether  he  records  the  caj^fure  in  the 
first  year  of  the  siege  or  the  siege  in  the  year  of  capture,  but  the 
extreme  limits  for  the  commencement  of  the  siege  are  724  and 
722,  assuming  always  that  the  latter  year  is  that  of  Shalmaneser's 
death.  Now,  it  is  noteworthy  that  in  720  Sargon  %vas  in  Syria 
and  Palestine  meeting  a  revolt  supported  by  the  Egyptians,  in 
which  Samaria  is  mentioned  as  taking  part,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  2  Kings  xvii.  4  seq.  seems  to  place  the  defeat  and 
capture  of  Hoshea  before  the  three  years'  siege.  This  would  fit 
very  well  with  the  hypothesis  that  the  fall  of  Samaria  took  place 
in  two  acts,  the  first  falling  in  722  and  the  second  in  720.  If 
we  do  not  accept  this  solution  we  must  suppose  that  a  revolt 
broke  out  in  Samaria  immediately  after  its  capture,  of  which  the 
Bible  tells  us  nothing.  Were  it  possible  to  go  by  a  tablet  in  the 
Louvre,  aided  by  a  conjecture  of  v.  Gutschmid  {ut  supra),  based 
on  the  variations  which  Assyriologists  themselves  have  given  in 
the  rendering  of  an  obscure  word,  we  might  even  place  Shal- 
maneser's death  and  the  commencement  of  tlie  siege  in  721 ;  but 


404  DATE  OF  lect.  iv. 

this  seems  hardly  possible  in  view  of  the  line,  indicating  a  change 
of  rule,  placed  in  the  Eponym  Canon  before  722.  The  year  721 
would  lend  itself  to  the  theory  of  Sayce  and  others,  that  2 
Kings  xviii.  9,  13  are  to  be  harmonised  by  making  the  latter 
verse  refer  to  an  expedition  in  711  ;  but  that  theory  has  so 
many  other  difficulties  that  it  cannot  be  allowed  to  influence  the 
dates  with  which  we  are  now  concerned. 

Note  5,  p.  153. — See  Schrader  in  Jahrhh.  f.  prot.  TheoL, 
1875,  p.  329  seq.,  and  in  imrticular  A.  v.  Gutschmidt,  Ncue 
Beitrage,  p.  143  seq. 

Note  6,  p.  154. — The  literature  upon  the  book  of  Hosea  is 
in  large  part  the  same  with  that  upon  Amos,  but  there  are 
several  special  German  commentaries  of  recent  date,  by  Simson 
(1851),  Wiinsche  (1868),  and  Nowack  (1880).  The  last-named 
gives  a  very  complete  view  of  recent  discussions.  There  is  also 
a  very  excellent  old  commentary  by  Pococke  (1685).  Further 
references  to  books  are  given  in  Encyc.  BriL,xii.  298,  where  also 
some  notices  of  the  traditions  about  the  prophet  may  be  found. 
Many  parts  of  the  book  of  Hosea  are  very  imperfectly  understood, 
and  this  not  merely  from  the  intrinsic  difficulties  of  the  prophet's 
style,  but  from  the  fact  that  the  text  is  often  manifestly  corrupt. 

Note  7,  x>.  156. — In  the  title  to  Hosea's  prophecy  i.  1,  his 
date  is  given  by  the  reigning  kings  of  Judah  and  Israel.  He 
prophesied,  we  are  told,  (1)  in  the  days  of  Uzziah,  Jotham,  Ahaz, 
and  Hezekiah ;  (2)  in  the  days  of  Jeroboam,  the  son  of  Joash, 
king  of  Israel.  As  Jeroboam  died  probably  in  the  lifetime  of 
Uzziah,  and  certainly  long  before  the  accession  of  Ahaz,  these 
two  periods  do  not  coincide,  and  it  can  hardly  be  thought  that 
they  are  both  from  the  same  hand  or  of  equal  authority.  As 
the  first  part  of  the  book  was  certainly  written  under  Jeroboam 
II.,  and  Hosea  himself  would  not  date  by  the  kings  of  a  foreign 
realm,  it  seems  natural  to  suppose  with  Ewald  and  other  scholars 
that  the  date  by  Jeroboam  is  original,  but  stood  at  first  as  a 
special  title  to  chaps,  i.  ii.,  or  to  these  chapters  along  with  chap, 
iii.,  and  that  the  special  title  was  generalised  by  a  later  hand, 
which  inserted  the  words,  ''  Uzziah,  etc.,  kings  of  Judah  and  in 
the  days  of."  The  later  editor  or  scribe  cannot  have  been  a  man 
of  Epliraira,  and  j)erhaps  was  the  same  who  penned  the  identical 
date  prefixed  to  the  book  of  Isaiah.  In  this  case  he  must  have 
lived  a  considerable  time  after  Hosea,  for  the  title  of  Isa.  i.  1 
can  hardly  be  older  than  the  collection  of  Isaiah's  prophecies  in 


LECT.  IV.  HOSEA.  405 


their  present  form  (see  p.  215  s^^.))  and  we  are  liardly  entitled 
to  accept  his  statement  as  proving  more  than  that  he  knew 
Hosea  to  have  been  a  contemporary  of  Isaiah.  If  the  title  were 
correct,  Hosea,  on  the  common  chronology,  must  be  held  to  have 
continued  to  prophesy  for  a  period  of  some  sixty  years.  This 
difficulty,  indeed,  is  now  removed  by  the  shortening  of  the  last 
period  of  the  history  of  Ephraim,  which  we  have  seen  to  be 
demanded  by  the  Assyrian  sj^nchronisnis.  But  the  fact  still 
remains  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  book  of  Hosea  that  points 
to  the  reigns  of  Ahaz  and  Hezekiah,  or  justifies  the  later  title. 
Some  writers  indeed,  including  Dr.  Pusey,  suppose  that  the 
Shalman  of  x.  14  is  Shalmaneser  IV.,  the  successor  of  Tiglath 
Pileser.  But  of  this  there  is  no  proof.  Dr.  Pusey's  theory  is 
that  Beth  Arbel  is  the  Arbela  in  the  plain  of  Jezreel  known  to 
Eusebius,  and  that  it  was  sacked  by  Shalmaneser  when  he  first 
received  Hoshea's  submission  at  the  beginning  of  his  reign.  But 
a  town  in  this  quarter,  important  enough  to  be  used  to  supply 
a  figure  for  the  fall  of  Samaria,  could  hardly  have  remained 
without  mention  in  the  historical  books,  and  it  does  not  appear 
that  Hoshea  ventured  to  resist  Shalmaneser  at  the  time  referred 
to.  Hosea  is  fond  of  historical  allusions,  and  does  not  confine 
himself  to  such  as  lie  near  at  hand.  There  was  another  Arbela 
known  to  Eusebius  (Onom..,  ed.  Lagarde,  p.  214),  east  of  the 
Jordan  near  Bella,  which  might  conceivably  have  been  reached 
by  Shalmaneser  III.  This  combination  has  been  suggested  by 
Schrader  {K.  A.  T.,  p.  283),  who,  however,  himself  admits  its  very 
problematic  character,  and  offers  the  more  plausible  alternative 
that  Shalman  may  have  been  a  Moabite  king,  a  sovereign  of 
Moab  of  that  name  (Salamanu),  actually  appearing  on  the  monu- 
ments (comp.  Smith,  Eimnym  Canon,  p.  124).  An  episode  in  the 
ferocious  wars  of  Gilead,  spoken  of  by  Amos,  may  indeed  very 
well  be  referred  to,  and  in  any  case  the  allusion  is  too  obscure  to 
be  used  to  fix  the  date  of  any  part  of  Hosea's  prophecies. 

Note  8,  p.  156. — The  general  sense  of  this  passage  has  been 
best  illustrated  by  Wellhausen,  GcschicMc,  i.  141,  who  is  certainly 
right  in  saying  that  the  direct  address  to  the  priests  does  not 
begin  with  verse  6,  but  must  include  verse  5.  In  spite  of  the 
objection  taken  by  Nowack,  there  is  no  difilculty  in  understand- 
ing DS  (A.  V.  mother)  of  the  stock  or  race  of  the  priests,  2  Sam. 
XX.  19  ;  Ezek.  xix.  2  ;  Arabic,  ummah.  But  to  gain  a  jtroper 
connection   between   ver.  5  and   ver. 


40G  HOSEA  IV. 


seems  to  require  a  slight  readjustment  of  the  text.  The  lines  on 
which  this  must  proceed  have  been  clearly  laid  down  by  Well- 
hausen.  Hosea  in  ver.  4  suddenly  breaks  off  in  his  rebuke  ol 
the  nation  at  large,  "  Yet  let  no  man  accuse  and  no  man  rebuke 
for  .  .  .  "  What  follows  must  be  to  the  effect  that  the  real 
blame  in  the  matter  lies  with  the  priests,  whose  destruction  is 
then  announced  in  ver.  5  following.  It  is  they  who,  bj^  reject- 
ing the  knowledge  of  Jehovah  which  they  were  set  to  teach, 
have  banished  that  knowledge  from  the  land.  But  the  reading 
which  Wellhausen  accepts,  V1D3D  Voyi,  "  for  my  people  is  like 
its  priests,"  is  not  satisfactory :  D"'jn3  and  D''1DD  are  not  synonyms, 
and  the  conjectured  reading  not  only  leaves  an  unexplained  pD'' 
at  the  end,  but  does  not  do  justice  to  the  circumstance  that,  in 
order  to  get  a  natural  transition  to  ver.  5,  the  clause  must  be 
addressed  to  the  priests  and  the  concluding  word  a  vocative.  This 
requisite  of  a  plausible  conjecture  is  in  so  far  met  by  Heilprin's 
V2''~1DD  "IDyi,  "  thy  people  are  like  its  accusers,  0  priest."  But 
the  priests  were  judges,  not  accusers,  and  the  people  at  large  could 
hardly  be  called  the  priest's  people.  Bather  the  people  of  the 
priest  must  be  the  priestly  caste  or  clan,  and  this  points  to  the 
very  slight  correction  "i^  110  for  "•^''IDD,  "  thy  people  have  rebelled 
against  me,  0  priest."  The  corruption  might  easily  arise,  espe- 
cially with  scriptio  defectiva,  under  the  influence  of  the  preceding 
Il")\  Perhaps,  indeed,  it  would  be  enough  to  change  the  point- 
ing and  simply  read,  "  Thy  people  are  as  mine  enemies,  0  priest " 
(1  Sam.  ii.  10). 

Note  9,  p.  160. — The  etymological  relations  of  IDH  are 
obscure.  In  Syriac  we  find  two  words  hesda  :  the  first,  written 
according  to  Bar  Hebrasus  with  hard  d,  means  "  reproach,"  the 
latter  with  ruJckakha,  hesdha,  is  the  Hebrew  HDn.  The  aspiration 
is  exactly  the  opposite  of  what  we  should  expect,  especially  as 
the  hard  form  seems  to  correspond  with  Arabic  hasad,  envy.  The 
sense  "  reproach  "  or  "  shame  "  in  Hebrew  (Lev.  xx.  1 7  ;  Prov. 
xiv.  34)  may  safely  be  regarded  as  an  Aramaism  ;  and  in  all 
probability  the  two  like-sounding  words  are  etymologically  dis- 
tinct ;  the  one  corresponds  to  the  Arabic  root  HSD,  the  other  to 
HSHD,  in  which  the  idea  of  friendly  combination  appears  to  lie, 
in  correspondence  with  the  fact  that  in  Hebrew  IDH  is  the  virtue 
that  knits  together  society.  It  is  noteworthy  that  hashada  has 
a  special  application,  in  the  phrase  hashadil  laJm,  to  the  joint 
exercise  of  hospitality  to  a  guest. 


LECT.  IV.  GENESIS  XXXIV.  XLIX.  407 

It  ongHt  never  to  be  forgotten  that  in  Hebrew  thouglit  there 
is  no  contrast  sucli  as  is  drawn  in  certain  schools  of  theology 
between  justice,  equity,  and  kindness.  Kindness  and  truth  are 
tbe  basis  of  society,  and  righteousness — even  forensic  righteous- 
ness— involves  these,  for  it  is  the  part  of  good  government  not 
to  administer  a  hard-and-fast  rule,  but  to  insist  on  considerate 
and  brotherly  conduct.  If  we  forget  this  we  shall  not  do  justice 
to  the  emphasis  laid  by  the  prophets  on  civil  righteousness. 
Compare,  for  example,  2  Sam.  xiv. 

Note  10,  p,  166. — The  difficulties  which  surround  the  literal 
interpretation  of  Gen.  xxxiv.  are  in  part  so  obvious  that  they 
were  felt  even  by  the  old  interpreters.  The  latest  stage  of 
inquiry  into  the  meaning  of  the  chapter  may  be  studied  in 
Wellhausen's  Com'position  des  Hexateuchs  {Jahrb,  f.  Deutsche 
TheoL,  vol.  xxi.  p.  435  seq.),  Dillmann's  Genesis,  and  Kuenen's 
essay  in  llieol.  Tijdschrift,  1880,  p.  257  seq.,  and  leads  to  the 
result  that  the  narrative,  as  it  now  stands,  has  passed  through  a 
complicated  history  which  need  not  occupy  us  here.  It  is  plain 
that  the  two  individuals  Simeon  and  Levi  could  not  take  and 
destroy  a  city  ;  that  in  verse  30  Jacob  speaks  of  himself,  not  as 
an  individual,  but  as  a  community,  "  I  am  a  few  men  ;"  and 
that  in  Gen.  xlix.  6  he  speaks  of  his  sons  as  tribes,  for  two  men 
do  not  form  an  "assembly"  {^Dp}-  -A-S  regards  what  is  said  of 
Reuben  in  Gen.  xxxv.  22  ;  xlix.  4,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the 
Hebrews  undoubtedly  were  accustomed  to  state  facts  as  to  the 
relationships  and  fusion  of  clans  or  communities  under  the 
figures  of  paternity  and  marriage  ;  and  this  plan  inevitably  led 
in  certain  cases  to  the  figurative  supposition  of  very  strange 
connections.  A  clear  instance  of  such  figurative  use  of  marriage 
with  a  father's  wife  is  found  in  1  Chron.  ii,  24,  as  the  text  has 
been  restored  by  Wellhausen  after  the  LXX.  (De  Gentihus,  etc., 
p.  14)  ;'  and  the  story  of  the  birth  of  Moab  and  Ammon,  as 
well  as  of  the  elements  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  spoken  of  in 
Gen.  xxxviii.  (see  Encyc.  Brit,  9th  ed.,  article  Judah),  may  be 
probably  explained  in  a  similar  way.  The  form  of  the  figure 
was  probably  not  repulsive  when  first  adopted,  as  marriage  with 
a  stepmother  is  a  Semitic  practice  of  great  antiquity,  and  at 
one  time  was  kno^^^l  to  the  Israelites  (Journ.  of  Phil,  vol.  ix. 
pp.  86,  94  ;  0.  T.  in  J.  Church,  p.  438).  The  precise  meaning 
of  the  deed  of  Reuben  is,  however,  obscure.  The  tribes  of  Bilhah 
were  subordinate  branches  of  the  house  of  Joseph,  and  perhaps 


408  ALLEGORY  OF  lect.  iv. 

some  combination  against  the  unity  of  Israel  and  tlie  hegemony 
of  Joseph,  may  be  aUuded  to.  That  these  historical  allegories 
turn  largely  on  marriage  and  fathership  is  not  unworthy  of  note 
in  connection  with  Hosea. 

Note  11,  p.  167. — That  \"li^  in  Hosea  xiii.  10  either  stands 
for  or  must  be  corrected  into  n''J?  is  the  almost  unanimous 
opinion  of  ancient  and  modem  interpreters,  from  the  LXX.  do^vn- 
wards.  The  prophet,  therefore,  does  not  say,  "  I  will  be  thy 
king,"  but  "  Where  now  is  thy  king  ?  " 

Note  12,  p.  171.— Compare  Noldeke  in  Z.JD.M.G.,  xv.  809, 
Wellhausen,  Text  der  BUcher  Samueh's,  p.  30  seq.  Beeliada  of  1 
Chron.  xiv.  7  is  the  same  as  Eliada  of  2  Sam.  v.  16  or  as 
Jehoiada. 

Note  1 3,  p.  1  71. — For  the  meaning  of  the  word  mohar,  dowry, 
and  the  corresponding  verb,  see  Hoffmann's  Ba)-  Ali,  5504, 
where  the  corresponding  Syriac  word  denotes  "  what  the  son-in- 
law  gives  to  the  parents  of  the  bride."  In  the  same  sense  the 
Syrians  say  nmn  nj?0  "13 D,  he  espoused  his  daughter,  lit.  bought 
her  from  liini  (Bernstein,  Ghrest.,  p.  37).  The  Hebrew  word 
eres,  "betroth"  (Exod.  xxii.  15,  Hosea  ii.  16),  properly  means  to 
barter  or  hire,  so  that  erts  in  Palestinian  Syriac  is  a  farmer 
(Lagarde,  Semitica,  i.  50).  In  Exod.  xxii.  the  primitive  sense  is 
still  felt,  as  also  in  2  Sam.  iii.  14,  where  eres  is  constraed  as  a 
verb  of  buying  with  the  preposition  2.  Note  also"  the  law  of 
Exod.  xxi.  referring  to  a  secondary  wife,  where  the  provision  that 
the  marriage  is  not  dissolved  at  the  close  of  seven  years  may  be 
directed  against  the  principle  of  temporary  marriages  as  practised 
among  the  Arabs  {nikahu  '/  muCati :  Moivatta,  iii.  24  ;  Bokhari, 
Bulak  ed.,  vi.  124  ;  Ibn  Khallikan,  Slane's  transl.  iv.  36).  For 
our  present  purpose  it  is  important  to  note  that  this  view  of 
marriage  explains  how  Hosea  had  to  buy  back  his  wif^  (iii.  2). 
This  would  constitute  a  new  betrothal,  and  so  Jehovah  betroths 
Israel  to  Himself  anew  (ii.  19). 

Note  14,  p.  171. — The  variation  of  the  form  of  the  metaphor, 
in  which  the  spouse  of  Jehovah  is  now  the  land  (Hosea  i.  2),  now 
the  stock  of  the  nation  (ii.  2  seq.),  belongs  to  the  region  of 
natural  symbolism,  in  which  land  and  nation  form  a  natural 
unity.  The  nation,  as  it  were,  grows  out  of  the  land  on  which 
it  is  planted  (Hosea  ii.  23  ;  Amos  ix.  15)  ;  the  living  stock  of  the 
race  has  its  roots  in  the  land,  and  is  figured  as  a  tree  (Isa.  vi.  13  ; 
xvi.  8  ;  Hosea  xiv.  5,  6  ;  Num.  xxiv.  6,  etc.).     From  this  point 


i-ECT.  IV.  MARRIAGE,  409 

of  view  tlie  multiplication  of  the  nation  is  just  one  aspect  of  the 
productivity  of  the  land,  and  it  is  indifferent  whether  we  say 
that  the  deity  marries  the  land  and  so  makes  it  productive,  or 
marries  the  stock  of  the  nation.  In  Semitic  heathenism,  in  fact, 
'Ashtoreth  the  spouse  of  Baal  is  not  so  much  connected  with  the 
earth  as  with  the  stock  of  the  earth's  vegetation.  Her  symbol  is 
the  sacred  tree,  the  Arabic  '^atharij  is  the  palm  tree  planted  on 
the  hdl  land,  and  the  same  conception  of  the  sacred  tree  was 
found  in  the  popular  w^orship  of  Israel  (Hosea  iv.  1 3).  The 
heathenish  element  in  these  conceptions  is  the  constant  reference 
to  natural  productivity,  the  identification  of  the  godhead  with  a 
natural  fertilising  principle.  Hosea  entirely  strips  off  this  con- 
ception. The  heaven  -  watered  land  of  Israel  and  its  goodly 
growth  are  Jehovah's  gift  (Hos.  ii.  8,  22,  23),  not  his  offspring. 
But  all  analogy  leads  us  to  believe  that  the  physical  use  of  the 
symbolism  of  marriage  was  the  earlier,  and  without  this  sup- 
position the  details  of  the  allegory  can  hardly  be  explained. 
Even  in  Isaiah  (iv.  2)  the  spring  of  Jehovah  is  analogous  to  the 
Arabic  bdl  (Lagarde,  Semitica,  i.  8),  and  must  be  interpreted,  not 
in  a  moral  sense,  but  of  the  natural  products  of  Jehovah's  land. 

Note  15,  p.  172. — In  Euting,  Punisclie  Steine  (1871)  p.  15, 
we  find  a  woman's  name  i5J;3nL^'"lX5  "  the  espoused  of  Baal."  For 
Babylon  and  parallel  examples  from  other  nations  see  Herodot. 
i.  181  seo[.     See  also  Jos.,  Ant,  xviii.  3  §  4. 

Note  16,  p.  172. — On  the  Arabic  hdl  see  Wetzstein  in  Z.  1). 
M.  G.,  xi.  489  ;  Sprenger,  ibid,  xviii.  300  seq. ;  Lagarde,  Semitica,  i. 
p.  8.  The  glossaries  to  De  Goeje's  Beladsori  and  to  the  Bib.  Geog. 
Ar.  supply  examples.  The  term  is  also  Talmudic.  But  for  the 
illustration  of  the  conception  of  the  marriage  of  the  deity  with 
his  land,  it  is  more  important  to  look  at  the  term  "athary  or 
''aththary,  for  whicli  see  Lane  s.  v. ;  Prof.  W.  Wright  in  Trcms.  Bib. 
Arch.,  vi.  439  ;  Lagarde  in  Nachr.  K.G.W.  Gott.  1881,  p.  396  seq.) 
and  in  particular  the  glossary  to  Beladsori  s.  v.  bdl.  The  con- 
nection of  '^athary  ■with  *Ashtoreth  seems  to  have  been  first 
observed  by  G.  Hoffmann.  The  land  of  Baal,  or  the  growth 
springing  from  such  land,  fertilised  by  the  rains  of  Baal,  bears  a 
name  derived  from  'Ashtorcth,  and  this  aj)pears  to  be  a  clear 
enough  indication  of  the  ancient  prevalerice  of  the  ideas  touched 
on  in  the  text. 

Note  17,  p.  179. — One  or  two  corrections  are  necessary  in 
the  English  version  of  Hosea  iii.  in  order  to  bring  out  the  full 


410  TEXT  OF 


sense.  In  verse  1 ,  read  "  Go  and  love  once  more  a  woman 
beloved  of  a  paramour,  and  an  adulteress."  It  is  the  same  faith- 
less wife  to  whom  Hosea  is  still  invited  to  show  his  affection. 
The  TlJ^  qualifies  the  main  verlo,  not  the  ^ ;  comp.  for  this 
construction  Cant.  iv.  8.  The  grape  cakes  in  the  end  of  the 
verse  (not  "  flagons  of  wine  ")  are  a  feature  of  Dionysiac  Baal- 
worship  {0.  T.  in  J.  Ch.,  p.  434).  In  ver.  3  the  sense  seems  to 
he  that  for  many  days  she  must  sit  still,  not  finding  a  husband 
(Jer.  iii.  1) — not  merely  as  A.  V.,  not  marrying  another,  but  not 
enjoying  the  rights  of  a  lawful  wife  at  all — while  at  the  same 
time  Hosea  is  "  towards  her,"  watching  over  and  waiting  for  her 
(the  phrase  is  as  2  Kings  vi.  11  ;  Jer.  xv.  1  ;  comp.  Hosea  i.  9). 

Note  18,  p.  181. — The  true  sense  of  this  narrative  was,  I 
believe,  first  explained  by  Ewald.  The  older  literal  interpreta- 
tion, in  the  form  still  maintained  by  Dr.  Pusey,  was  offensive 
to  every  sound  moral  sense.  The  idea  that  a  divine  command 
could  justify  a  marriage  otherwise  highly  improper,  and  that  the 
offensive  circumstances  magnify  the  obedience  of  the  prophet, 
substitutes  the  nominalistic  notion  of  God  for  that  of  Scripture. 
In  addition  to  Ewald's  exposition,  the  remarks  of  Wellhausen  in 
Bleek,  Einl.,  p.  406  seq.,  well  deserve  perusal.  See  also  Encyc. 
Brit,  xii.  297,  for  an  indication  of  the  various  interpretations  that 
have  been  offered,  and  Nowack,  op.  cit.,  p.  xxxvi.,  for  a  catalogue 
of  recent  Continental  literature  on  the  question. 

Note  19,  p.  185. —  A  remark  may  here  be  offered  on  the 
difficult  passage,  vii.  5  seq.  The  prophet  is  describing  the 
wi-ckedness  of  the  king,  princes,  and  people  as  a  hot  fever,  an 
eager  and  consuming  passion,  which  burns  up  the  leaders  of  the 
nation,  and  makes  Ephraim  like  a  cake  not  turned,  and  so 
spoiled  by  the  fire.  In  v.  5  this  figure  is  mingled  with  that  of 
the  heat  of  intoxication.  "  In  the  day  of  our  king  the  princes 
were  sick  with  the  heat  of  wine,  they  stretched  out  their  hands 
with  scorners  "  or  reckless  despisers  of  right.  The  figure  here 
is  quite  similar  to  Isa.  xxviii.  1  seq.  In  the  following  verse  we 
nuist  plainly  read  S^Ttp,  "For  their  inward  parts  are  as  a 
furnace,"  with  the  same  enallage  numeri  as  in  ^t^'D  for  IDJ^D  in 
ver.  5  ;  or,  as  is  suggested  by  Schorr  (in  Heilprin,  ii.  145),  we 
may  read  DD"lp  (many  supposed  enallages  are  probably  corrup- 
tions of  text,  and  '-\\^^  in  old  writing  can  as  well  be  plural  as 
singular).  The  following  words  D3"1J^3  DDP  may  be  defended 
from  Jer.  ix.  8  [Heb.  ix.  7]  U1N   U^U'^  U"1p3,  to  which  the  con- 


LECT.  IV.  HO  SEA.  411 


struction  stands  related  as  inn  ^y  "ih  D^tJ^  to  nb  h^  "im  D^C^.  It 
will  then  be  a  circumstantial  clause.  The  prophet  is  speaking 
of  a  wicked  project  of  king  and  princes  in  which  they  join 
hands  with  impious  men  in  the  intoxication  of  their  evil  pas- 
sions, and  proceeds,  "  for  their  inward  part  is  as  a  furnace,  when 
their  heart  is  in  their  guiles."  [There  is,  however,  a  good  deal 
that  is  attractive  in  Schorr's  proposal  to  read  D3  1^3,  "  their 
heart  burns  within  them."]  In  what  follows,  Houbigant  long 
ago  thought  of  jtJ'y  (perfect)  for  )p>,  but  neither  he,  nor 
Wiinsche,  who  follows  him,  saw  that  JC^'*  is  simply  an  obsolete 
orthography  for  the  imperfect  JC^'yi,  like  ID?  for  1DJ?!?,  Psalm, 
xxviii.  8,  so  that  the  passage  is  to  be  explained  by  Dent, 
xxix.  20  \Ileh.  19].  Thus  the  verse  goes  on,  "their  anger 
DnSi<  as  Tgm,  Syr.)  smokes  all  the  night,  in  the  morning  it 
flames  fortb  like  blazing  fire." 

Note  20,  p.  189. — I  adhere,  though  not  without  some 
hesitation,  to  the  'h  of  the  Massoretic  text  of  Hosea  xiv.  8  and 
the  traditional  view  that  the  prefixed  D''"lSS  indicates  Ephraim 
as  the  speaker,  as  against  the  17  of  the  LXX.,  which  has  found 
favour  with  many  recent  writers.  The  elliptical  indication  of 
the  change  of  speaker,  though  unique,  is  not  incredible,  for  it 
causes  no  insuperable  obscurity.  But  in  this  view  I  think  it  is 
quite  necessary  to  regard  the  whole  verse  as  spoken  by  Ephraim. 
The  first  ''3N,  indeed,  on  this  view,  marks  an  emphasis  which  we 
would  not  express  in  English  ;  but  precisely  in  the  pronominal 
expression  or  suppression  of  emphasis  Hebrew  and  English 
differ  greatly.  The  main  difficulty  in  the  LXX.  reading  seems 
to  me  to  be  much  greater  than  any  that  attaches  to  the  other 
view.  The  comparison  of  Jehovah  to  a  fir-tree  is  not  only  with- 
out parallel,  but  in  strange  contrast  to  all  prophetic  thought. 
The  evergreen  tree  is  in  Semitic  symbolism  the  image  of  recep- 
tivity, of  divinely  nourished  life,  not  of  quickening  power. 
Ephraim  bears  fruit  to  Jehovah,  not  Jehovah  to  Ephraim.  More- 
over, the  "  answering"  in  our  verse  corresponds  to  that  of  ii.  15. 

Although  the  rendering  "  cypress  "  for  "  fir-tree  "  has  of  late 
become  so  common,  I  hesitate  to  adopt  it  for  two  reasons.  (1) 
Ebusus,  the  modern  Iviza,  is  according  to  the  coins  DtJQ  *•&?  = 
D''t^*1"l3  "•&?,  and  what  this  means  appears  from  the  Greek 
IIiTi'ovo-ai  (see  Schroder,  Fhon.  Sjjr.,  p.  99).  (2)  The  Berosh  is 
according  to  Scripture  the  characteristic  tree  of  Lebanon  along 
with   the   cedar.     Now  it  is  true  that  the  cypress    occurs  on 


412  ISAIAH,  LECT.  V. 

Lebanon  in  association  with  tlie  cedar,  but  a  species  of  Ahies  is 
equally  characteristic  of  these  mountains,  at  a  lower  altitude, 
and  to  judge  from  its  present  frequency  must  have  always  been 
a  prominent  feature  in  the  forests. 

Note  21,  p.  190. — According  to  most  recent  critics,  the 
prophecy  in  Zechariah  ix.-xi.  ought  to  come  in  here  to  close  the 
prophetic  record  of  the  Northern  Kingdom  ;  but  Stade,  in  his 
essay  on  "  Deuterozecharia,"  in  the  Zeitschrift  fur  alttestament- 
liche  Wissenschaft  (not  yet  completely  published),  and  in  the 
Giessner  Ludwigstag  Programm,  1880,  following  Vatke  and  a 
few  others,  has  put  this  question  in  a  new  light,  and  assigns 
Zech.  ix.-xiv.  to  a  very  late  date.  That  Ewald's  view  of  Zech. 
xii.-xiv.  is  untenable,  and  that  these  chapters  at  least  are  post- 
Exilic,  has  been  my  conviction  for  many  years.  Stade  seems  to 
have  shown  that  the  same  thing  holds  good  for  ix.-xi. 


Lecture  Y. 

Note  1,  p.  191. — The  literature  of  the  book  of  Isaiah,  with 
which  we  shall  be  mainly  occupied  in  the  next  four  Lectures, 
is  enormous  ;  for  an  account  and  estimate  of  the  commentators 
it  is  enough  to  refer  to  Mr.  Cheyne's  tenth  essay  appended  to 
his  ProjjJiecies  of  Isaiah,  1881.  This  exceedingly  useful  book 
gives  the  English  reader  so  complete  a  view  of  the  present-  state 
of  the  exegetical  questions  connected  with  Isaiah  that  a  general 
reference  to  it  may  take  the  place  of  many  notes  on  individual 
points  which  would  otherwise  have  called  for  remark.  The 
book  is  indispensable  to  every  one  who  has  not  access  to  a  full 
library  of  Continental  exegesis,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  those 
who  have  themselves  worked  in  the  same  field  will  best  appre- 
ciate the  exhaustive  studies  witnessed  to  on  every  page.  In 
addition  to  other  help  which  these  Lectures  derive  from  it,  I 
ought  here  to  acknowledge  repeated  obligations  to  the  translation 
for  felicitous  phrases.  On  the  other  hand,  it  will  appear  by 
and  by  that  I  am  in  very  many  cases  at  variance  with  ]\Ir. 
Cheyne  as  regards  the  order  and  date  of  the  several  prophecies, 
a  point  on  which  he  seems  to  have  been  misled  by  the  Assyri- 
ologists.  Of  modern  foreign  commentaries,  those  of  Gesenius, 
Ewald,  Hitzig,  and  Delitzsch  may  be  chiefly  recommended  to 
the  student.     Tlie  learned  commentary  of  Dr.  Kay  offers  little 


LECT.  V.  CHRONOLOGY.  413 

assistance  in  tlie  mainly  historical  objects  contemplated  in  the 
present  Lectures.  For  the  historical  exegesis  of  the  Prophet,  the 
labours  of  Ewald  are  the  necessary  starting-point  of  every 
student,  though  in  part  now  antiquated  by  Assyrian  researches. 
The  student  should  not  overlook  the  contributions  of  Lagarde 
in  his  Pvoj)liet(e  Clialdaice,  p.  il.,  and  in  his  Semitica,  I. 

Note  2,  p.  193, — This  is  the  natural  inference  from  the 
fact  that  for  a  time  Jeroboam  retired  from  Shechem  to  Penuel 
beyond  the  Jordan  (1  Kings  xii.  25). 

Note  3,  p.  194. — For  the  chronology  of  Ahaz's  predecessors 
we  must  take  as  our  point  of  departure  the  campaign  of  Tiglath 
Pileser  against  Pekah  and  Rezin  B.C.  734.  At  this  time  Ahaz 
was  king  of  Judah.  Further  we  know  that  Menahem  was  still 
alive  B.C.  738  {supra,  p.  150),  while  2  Kings  xv.  37  shows  that 
Pekah  was  king  and  had  begun  to  attack  Judah  before  the  death 
of  Ahaz's  father  Jotham.  Ahaz,  therefore,  must  have  come  to 
the  throne  between  738  and  734  ;  and,  as  it  is  hardly  to  be 
supposed  that  the  Syro-Ephraitic  war  was  prolonged  more  than 
one  or  two  years  before  the  Assyrians  interfered,  the  date  of 
Jotham's  death  may  be  taken  approximately  as  B.C.  735,  so  that 
734  would  count  as  the  first  year  of  Ahaz.  Now  reckoning 
backwards  we  find  that  the  Judasan  chronology  assigns  to  the 
reigns  from  Athaliah  to  Jotham  inclusive,  6  +  40  +  29  +  52+16 
=  143.  The  northern  chronology  gives  for  the  same  period  102 
years  of  the  dynasty  of  Jehu,  10  of  Menahem,  and  some  3 
years  more  np  to  the  expedition  of  Tiglath  Pileser — in  all  about 
115  years.  The  Assyrian  monuments  (supra,  p.  150)  show 
that  this  reckoning  is  right  within  a  few  years,  but  if  anything 
is  rather  too  long  than  too  short,  so  that  the  Judoean  chronology 
of  the  period  is  out  by  about  30  years.  The  discrepancy  may 
be  so  far  reduced  by  assuming  that  part  of  Jotham's  reign  fell 
in  his  fiither's  lifetime,  as  we  know  that  he  acted  as  vizier  while 
Uzziah  was  a  leper  (2  Kings  xv.  5).  But  even  this  does  not  put 
all  right,  and  is  at  best  a  mere  hypothesis,  which  finds  a  very 
uncertain  stay  in  the  supposed  Assyrian  reference  to  Azariah  or 
Uzziah  B.C.  740.  In  reality  it  seems  probable  that  the  necessary 
shortening  of  Judoean  reigns  must  be  sought  at  more  than  one 
part  of  the  period  with  which  we  are  dealing,  and  that  the  error 
is  distributed  between  the  69  years  of  Joash  and  Amaziah  and 
the  68  of  Uzziah  and  Jotham.  For  Amaziah,  Uzziah's  father, 
was  contemporary  with  King  Joash  of  Israel,  and  his  defeat  by 


414  CHRONOLOGY 


that  monarch  seems  to  have  fallen  near  the  close  of  Amaziah's 
reign.  At  least  it  is  a  highly  plausible  conjecture  of  Wellhausen 
{Z.f.  d.  TheoL,  1875,  p.  634)  that  Amaziah's  murder  in  a  popu- 
lar rising  was  due  to  the  discontent  produced  by  his  absurd 
challenge  to  Joash  and  the  misfortunes  that  followed.  In  this 
case  the  first  year  of  Uzziah  cannot  have  fallen  anything  like 
so  late  as  the  15th  year  of  Jeroboam  II.,  to  which  the  present 
Judoean  chronology  appears  to  assign  it  (6  +  40  +  29  =  75  =  28 
+  17  +  16  +  14).  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  campaign  of 
Joash  against  Jerusalem  must  have  fallen  in  his  later  prosperous 
years.  [The  three  campaigns  of  Joash  against  Syria  must  be  at 
the  end  of  his  reign,  since  it  was  left  to  his  son  to  improve  his 
victories.]  Thus  we  are  led  to  conclude  that  Uzziah  came  to 
the  throne  about  the  same  time  with  Jeroboam  II.  The  rest  of 
the  error  belongs  to  the  prosperous  days  of  Uzziah  and  Jotham, 
which  may  very  well  be  reduced  by  15  or  16  years,  and  yet 
leave  time  for  the  great  internal  changes  alluded  to  in  the  early 
chapters  of  Isaiah. 

The  chronology  from  B.C.  734  downwards  offers  a  much 
more  complicated  problem,  for  here  we  have  to  deal  with  a 
multitude  of  discordant  data.  According  to  the  present  chrono- 
logy of  the  book  of  Kings,  Manasseh's  accession  opens  the  last 
third  of  the  second  480  years  of  Israel's  history,  and  so  falls  160 
years  before  the  return  or  110  before  the  destruction  of  the 
temple  in  the  11th  year  of  Zedekiah  (b.c.  586).  For  the  last 
part  of  thiase  110  years  we  have  a  sure  guide  in  the  chronology 
of  the  book  of  Jeremiah,  in  which  the  reckoning  by  years  of 
kings  of  Judah  is  adopted,  and  checked  by  another  reckoning 
by  years  of  Jeremiah's  ministry,  and  by  a  third  by  years  of 
Nebuchadnezzar,  whose  dates  are  known  by  the  Canon  of 
Ptolemy  (Syncellus,  p.  388).  Now,  the  book  of  Kings  divides 
the  110  years  as  follows  : — - 

Manasseh         .         .         ,55 
Anion      ....  2 

Josiah     .  .         .  .31 

Jehoiakim        .  .  .11 

Zedekiah  .  .  .11 

The  11  years  of  Zedekiah  are  certain  from  Jer.  xxxii,  1  ;  2 
Kings  XXV.  8.     Further, 

4  Jehoiakim  =  23  Jeremiah  (Jer.  xxv.  1). 
13  Josiah  =  1  Jeremiah  (Jer.  xxv.  3). 


OF  yUDAH.  415 


Therefore  1  Jelioiakim  =  20  Jeremiah  =  32  Josiah  ;  that  is, 
Josiah  reigned  31  years  as  stated  in  Kings.  But  now, 
if  Jehoiakim  really  reigned  11  years,  21  Jehoiakim  =  1 0 
Zedekiah=18  Nebuchadnezzar  (Jer.  xxxii.  1),  and  so  4 
Jehoiakim  =  1  Nebuchadnezzar,  an  equation  actually  given 
in  the  Hebrew  text  of  Jer.  xxv.  1,  but  rightly  wanting  in 
the  Septuagint.  For  in  reality  4  Jehoiakim  is,  according  to 
Jer.  xlvi.  2,  the  year  of  the  battle  of  Carchemish,  when  Nabo- 
polassar  was  still  on  the  throne,  but  in  his  last  year  (Berosus  ap. 
Jos.,  c.  'Apion,  i.  19).  Hence  we  must  conclude  that  the  first  year 
of  Nebuchadnezzar — that  is,  the  first  year  which  began  in  his 
reign — was  really  the  fifth  of  Jehoiakim,  and  that  the  latter 
reigned  not  11  but  12  years.  ^  The  12  years  of  Jehoiakim 
seem  also  to  be  confirmed  by  Ezek.  i.  1  seq.,  which  Wellhausen 
uses  to  support  the  current  chronology.  According  to  Ezekiel, 
the  fifth  year  of  Jehoiachin's  captivity  (i.  2)  is  the  30th  year  of 
another  unnamed  era.  It  appears  from  xxiv.  1,  where  the  ninth 
year  is  the  ninth  of  Zedekiah,  that  Ezekiel  counts  as  the  first 
year  of  captivity  the  first  year  of  Zedekiah — that  is,  the  first  year 
that  began  in  exile.  Thus  the  first  year  of  the  anonymous  era 
will  be  the  18th  of  Josiah  if  Jehoiakim  reigned  11  years,  but 
the  19th  if  he  reigned  12.  As  the  18th  year  of  Josiah  is 
that  of  his  great  reformation,  it  would  appear  that  Ezekiel 
reckons  from  that  event.  His  era  is  the  era  of  reformed  wor- 
ship. But  in  that  case  it  seems  a  mistake  to  assume,  as  Well- 
hausen does  (ut  sup7Xi,  p.  623),  that  the  18th  year  would  be  the 
first  of  the  reformed  era.  If  the  first  year  of  captivity  is  the 
first  that  began  in  captivity,  the  first  year  of  reformation  must 
be  that  which  began  after  the  reformation,  or  the  19th  of 
Josiah.  It  is  indeed  probable,  since  Ezekiel  reckons  by  Baby- 
lonian months,  and  so  begins  the  year  in  the  spring,  that  his 

^  It  will  not  do  to  get  over  this  argument  by  supposing  that  the 
fourth  year  of  Jehoiakim  was  reckoned  from  autumn,  and  that  thus,  if 
tlie  battle  of  Carchemish  fell  in  late  autumn,  part  of  that  year  on  tlie 
Jud?ean  reckoning  might  still  coincide  with  Nebuchadnezzar's  first  year 
reckoned  from  the  following  Easter.  For  the  ninth  month  of  Jeremiah's 
calendar  is  a  winter  month,  Jer.  xxxvi.  9,  22,  shoAving  that  he  reckons 
by  Babylonian  years,  beginning  in  spring.  To  suppose  that  Jeremiah 
habitually  mixed  up  two  calendars  is  altogether  out  of  the  question. 
Besides,  it  is  highly  improbable  that  the  encounter  of  Neclio  and 
Nebuchadnezzar  on  the  Euphrates  took  place  in  late  autumn,  as  the  river 
can  be  forded  in  summer. 


416  CHRONOLOGY 


first  year  begins  with  Josiah's  reformed  passover.  But  if  so,  tlie 
spring  era  was  already  in  use  in  Josiah's  time  in  priestly  circles 
(comp,  2  Kings  xxii.  3,  LXX.),  and  so,  in  spite  of  2  Kings  xxiii. 
23,  which  belongs  to  the  editor,  not  to  the  sources,  and  therefore 
has  no  chronological  authority,  that  passover  must  have  fallen  in 
the  19th  year  of  the  king.  For  it  is  to  be  noted  that  it  is 
always  in  priestly  circles  or  in  connection  with  e\'ents  of  the 
temple  that  a  reckoning  by  years  of  the  king  is  found.  The 
assignation  of  1 1  years  to  Jehoiakim  instead  of  1 2  may  be  a 
mere  oversight,  the  Hebrew  chronicler  supposing  that  Nebuchad- 
nezzar commanded  at  Carchemish  as  king.  It  may,  however,  be 
systematic,  as  the  number  11  is  the  key  to  the  last  110  years  of 
the  kingdom  (Manasseh,  55;  Amon  + Josiah  =  33).  In  any 
case  it  would  have  the  effect  of  disordering  by  one  year  any 
calculations  as  to  earlier  dates. 

Let  us  now  go  back  to  the  time  of  Hezekiah.  Taking  the 
reigns  from  Manasseh  to  Zedekiah  inclusive  at  110  years,  and 
that  of  Hezekiah  at  29,  we  get  1  Hezekiah  =  B.C.  724;  but 
allowing  one  more  year  for  Jehoiakim  the  date  is  725.  But  for 
the  reign  of  Hezekiah  we  have  the  following  synchronisms  : — 

(1)  2  Kings  xviii.  9  ;  4  Hezekiah  =  the  year  of  the   com- 

mencement of  the  siege  of  Samaria  =  B.C.  724-722 
by  the  Assyrian  monuments. 

(2)  2  Kings  xviii.  13;   14  Hezekiah  =  the   year  of   Senna- 

cherib's invasion  =  B.C.  701  by  the  monuments. 
These  dates  are  quite  inconsistent  with  one  another,  and  the 
question  arises  which  we  shall  take  as  our  guide.  Let  us  begin 
with  (1).  It  is  plain  that,  according  to  the  received  chronology, 
this  date  is  at  least  one  year  out ;  but  if  w^e  introduce  the  cor- 
rection already  found  requisite  for  Jehoiakim  it  is  j)robably 
exact  {swpra,  p.  403).  In  other  words,  if  this  date  is  original  and 
accurate,  the  book  of  Kings  is  probably  right — certainly  not 
more  than  two  years  wrong  —  in  assigning  29  +  55-f2  =  86 
years  to  Hezekiah,  Manasseh,  and  Am  on  taken  together.  There 
is  therefore  high  probability  that  (I)  is  an  indejDcndent  and 
valuable  datum,  and  that  the  sum  of  the  years  of  Hezekiah, 
Manasseh,  and  Amon  is  also  accurately  known.  And  in  general 
this  result  is  borne  out  by  the  statement  of  Jer.  xxvi.  18,  that 
Micah,  who  predicts  the  fall  of  Samaria,  prophesied  under 
Hezekiah,  a  statement  inconsistent  with  synchronism  (2),  which 
makes  Ahaz  be  still  on  the  throne  when  Samaria  was  captured. 


LECT.  V.  OF  JUDAH.  417 


When  we  pass  now  to  (2)  we  are  encountered  by  a  very 
complex  problem  ;  for  tUe  statement  that  Sennacherib  attacked 
Samaria  in  Hezekiah's  fourteenth  year  is  closely  connected  witli 
the  assignation  to  that  prince  of  a  total  reign  of  29  years.  The 
connection  is  as  follows  : — At  2  Kings  xx.  1  we  learn  tliat 
Hezekiah's  sickness  took  place  about  tlie  time  of  the  Assyrian 
invasion,  and  at  verse  6  we  lind  that  after  this  sickness  Hezekiah 
lived  15  years.  Now  20  =  14  +  15,  which  at  first  sight  seems 
to  bear  out  (2).  A  closer  examination,  however,  shows  that 
there  is  something  wrong.  Merodach  Baladan,  wliose  embassy  is 
placed  after  Hezekiah's  sickness,  was  no  longer  king  in  B.C.  701, 
and  the  history  contains  internal  evidence  (ver.  G)  that  Hezekiah's 
sickness  fell  before  the  expedition  of  Sennacherib.  One,  there- 
fore, of  the  numbers  14,  15,  29  is  certainly  false,  and  has  been 
calculated  from  the  other  two.  In  that  case  we  have  three 
possibilities,  (a)  14  and  29  are  riglit  and  the  15  is  wrong.  \i 
so,  Manasseh  came  to  the  throne  in  686,  and  not  in  695  as  the 
received  chronology  states.  In  this  there  is  no  intrinsic  im- 
probability, for  to  make  that  king  l)egin  the  tliird  section  of  the 
480  years  from  Solomon's  temple  seems  to  be  certainly  a  part  of 
the  artificial  chronology.  But  in  that  case  it  is  very  singular 
tliat  the  artificial  clironology  should  have  found  its  end  served 
by  a  date  for  Manasseh  which  is  indeed  false,  but  combined  with 
29  and  with  2  Kings  xviii.  9  gives  a  date  almost,  if  not  quite, 
exact  for  the  fall  of  Samaria.  Such  a  coincidence  could  only 
be  the  result  of  design,  and  the  design  is  an  incredible  one,  for 
it  implies  knowledge  of  the  true  Assyrian  chronology  and  a 
determination  to  fix  the  fall  of  Samaria  (a  non-Judiean  date) 
correctly,  at  the  expense  of  the  date  701,  which  directly  affected 
Judah.  (/>)  14  is  right  and  29  is  WTong,  and  derived  from  a 
ct)mbination  of  the  14  with  15.  In  this  case  a  similar  argument 
applies.  The  false  29,  and  the  artificial  (but  independent)  date 
for  Manasseh  combine  to  give  the  true  date  for  the  fall  of 
Samaria.  And  neither  (a)  nor  {}>)  gives  the  least  clue  to  the 
reason  of  the  discordant  data  (1)  and  (2).  (c)  There  remains  u 
third  hypothesis,  viz.  that  15  and  29  are  the  dates  from  which 
the  14  has  been  derived,  and  this  view,  I  think,  enables  us  to 
give  a  tenable  hypothesis  for  the  whole  system  of  numbers. 

To  develop  it,  I  return  to  the  assumptions  already  found 
l)robable,  that  the  fourth  year  of  ILizekiah  coincides  with  tin; 
first  year  of  the  siege  of  Samaria,  and  that  Hezekiah,  Manasseh, 
19 


418  CHRONOLOGY  lect.  v. 

and  Amon  togetlier  reigned  86  years.  I  do  not  assume  tliat 
tlie  years  of  each  king  are  truly  known,  for  tlie  accession  of 
Manasseli  seems  to  be  an  artificial  date.  But  it  is  higlily  prob- 
able tbat  tbe  true  reign  of  each  of  these  kings  was  once  known. 
For  in  the  time  of  Uzziah  dates  were  not  yet  popularly  reckoned 
by  years  of  kings  (Amos  i.  1),  while  this  reckoning  appears 
under  Hezekiah.  This  docs  not  seem  to  be  accident.  The  sun- 
dial of  Ahaz,  as  well  as  his  interest  in  star  worship,  point  to  the 
fact  that  astronomy  (combined,  of  co-urse,  with  superstition)  was 
one  of  his  foreign  tastes,  and  it  is  impossible  that  he  could  have 
dealt  with  astronomy  without  feeling  the  need  for  a  more  exact 
calendar  on  the  Assyrian  modeL  It  seems  also  that  the  reckon- 
ing by  years  of  kings  really  went  by  the  Assyrian  Calendar  from 
the  time  of  Josiah  dowmwards.  If  so,  the  time  of  Ahaz  or 
Hezekiah  is  almost  the  only  one  at  which  it  could  have  been 
introduced.  I  apprehend,  then,  that  from  the  time  of  Ahaz 
downwards  there  was  an  exact  record  of  years  reigned,  such  as 
there  is  no  trace  of  at  an  earlier  date,  except  in  concerns  of  the 
temple  (the  latter  probably  reckoned  by  the  Phoenician  Calendar ; 
see  Dillmann's  essay  in  Monatb.  Bed.  Ac,  27  Oct.  1881). 
Again,  though  the  book  of  Kings  in  its  present  form  (dates  from 
the  Exile,  or  indeed,  as  regards  the  schematised  chronology,  from 
after  the  restoration,  the  main  stock  of  it  is  certainly  earlier  even 
in  its  redaction,  and  so  might  well  contain  the  true  years  for 
Hezekiah  and  his  successors.  If  so,  the  schematiser  of  the 
chronology  would  not  change  more  than  was  necessary,  and  if  he 
lengthened  Manasseh's  reign  would  correspondingly  shorten 
Hezekiah's.  Thus  it  is  intelligible  that  the  fourth  year  of 
Hezekiah  comes  in  at  the  true  date,  or,  at  least,  within  a  year 
or  two.  "VYe  may  assume,  therefore,  that  the  choice  of  the 
number  29  was  not  arbitrar}'.  But  now  again  it  is  the  inde- 
pendent judgment  of  critics  that,  in  its  present  form,  2  Kings 
xviii.  13-xx.  19,  with  the  exception  of  the  remarkable  verses 
xviii.  14-16  (not  found  in  the  parallel  passage  in  Isaiah),  belongs 
to  a  pretty  late  date  (Wellhausen,  in  Bleek,  §  131),  or  at  least  was 
retouched  after  the  fall  of  the  kingdom.  In  that  case  it  is  easy 
to  understand  how  the  fourteenth  year  of  Hezekiah  may  be  an 
insertion  or  correction  made  on  the  presupposition  that  Heze- 
kiah's sickness  corresponded  with  the  year  of  Sennacherib's 
invasion.  It  is  not  quite  certain  that  this  even  requires  us  to 
hold  the  15  to  be  part  of  the  original  tradition,  for  Jerome 


LECT.  V.  OF  JUDAH.  419 

gives  an  interpretation  of  Isa.  xxxviii.  10  wliicli  makes  the 
sickness  fall  at  the  bisection  of  Hezekiah's  days,  and  it  is  prob- 
able that  this  explanation  was  traditional. 

The  foregoing  argument  is  undoubtedly  of  a  very  hypotheti- 
cal character,  but  it  seems  to  show  that  at  all  events  it  is  possible 
to  explain  (2)  from  (1),  but  not  vice  versa;  and  this,  combined  with 
the  argument  from  the  date  of  Micah,  and  the  fact  that  (1)  gives 
a  date  for  the  siege  of  Samaria  as  accordant  with  the  monu- 
ments as  we  can  possibly  expect,  seems  to  entitle  us  to  give  it 
the  preference.  Hezekiah's  first  year  is  thus  fixed  for  725  (724). 
It  does  not  follow  that  Manasseh's  first  year  was  695,  for  that  is 
a  schematised  date,  and  there  is  force  in  Wellhausen's  argument 
that  the  strength  of  the  prophetic  party  in  Judah  at  the  time  of 
the  reaction  under  Manasseh  makes  it  probable  that  Hezekiah 
reigned  some  considerable  time  after  the  defeat  of  Sennacherib. 

If  the  first  year  of  Hezekiah  was  725,  Ahaz's  reign  is 
shortened  to  some  ten  years.  But  his  16  years  will  not  fit  with 
either  (1)  or  (2)  ;  and,  though  the  ages  given  to  him  and  Hezekiah 
at  their  accessions  rather  demand  a  lengthening  than  a  shorten- 
ing of  his  reign,  it  is  difficult  to  assign  much  value  to  these, 
when  numbers  so  much  more  essential  to  be  remembered  are 
indubitably  most  corrupt. 

Note  4,  p.  202. — The  nature  of  this  divination  by  means  of 
familiar  spirits,  as  the  wizard  or  Baal  Ob  pretended,  is  seen  from 
the  narrative  of  the  witch  of  Endor.  In  reality,  the  perform- 
ance was  a  form  of  ventriloquism,  and  the  Ob  or  familiar  spirit 
seemed  to  speak  from  beneath  the  ground  or  out  of  the  stomach 
of  the  diviner.  The  Greeks  called  such  diviners  iyyaa-rpLixvOot, 
eyyaorrptrai,  crrepvoixdvTets,  ^vpvKXets  or  Ei'pvKAeiSat,  and  their 
father  Eurycles  was  said  to  prophesy  truly  "  by  the  dcemon  that 
w\as  within  him,"  Schol.  on  Arist.,  Vesjxe,  984  (1019) ;  lamblichus 
cited  by  Lagarde,  Abliandluvgen,  p.  189.  In  Syriac  these  sub- 
terranean spirits  are  called  Zalckiire,  and  the  conception  is  well 
illustrated  in  the  second  Syriac  romance  of  Julian  the  Apostate, 
published  by  Hoffmann  {Julianas  der  ahtriinnige,  Leyden,  1880, 
p.  247),  translated  by  Noldeke,  Z.  1).  M.  (?.,  xxviii.  666  seq^. 
See  also  Niildeke's  note. 

Note  5,  p.  211. — Compare  0.  T.  in  J.  Ch.,  Lect.  iv.  p.  109 
seq.;  Lect.  vi.  p.  159  seq. 

Note  6,  p.  217. — Mr.  Cheyne,  mainly  following  Kleinert  in 
Theol.  Stud.  «.  Krit.,  1877,  p.  174  seq.,  defends  the  authorship 


420  DATES  OF  lect.  v. 


of  Isa.  xxi.  1-10  by  Isaiali,  arguing  tliat  tlie  ideas  and  phraseology 
are  Isaiah's,  that  the  second  part  of  the  prophecy  seems  to  have 
been  written  at  a  distance  from  Babylon,  with  the  fate  of  which 
the  prophet  expresses  a  certain  sympathy,  and  that  the  reference 
may  therefore  be  to  the  siege  of  Babylon  by  Sargon  in  709,  to 
which   date   Mr,  Cheyne   assigns   the   expedition   of  Merodach 
Baladan  to  Hezekiah.     I   do  not  think  that  these  arguments 
have  all  the  weight  claimed  for  them.      There  is  good  reason  for 
holding  that  the  embassy  of  Merodach  Baladan  fell  in  the  reign 
of  Sennacherib  {infra,  Lect.  VIIL),  and  it  seems  impossible  to 
question  that  the  destruction  of  Babylon,  spoken  of  in  ver.  2  as 
effected  by  Elam  and  Media,  must  be  the  capture  of  the  city  by 
Cyrus.     The  prophecy,  therefore,  belongs  to  the  Chaldsean  cycle. 
Note  7,  p.  217. — It  may  here  be  convenient  to  give  in  con- 
nected form  the  chronological  order  of  the  chief  prophecies, 
according  to  the  results  of  the  following  Lectures.     Of  course, 
there  is  necessarily  a  large  element  of  hypothesis  in  the  details. 
First  Period. — From  the  year  of  Uzziah's  death  to  the 
outbreak  of  the  Syro-Ephraitic  war.      Chaps,  ii.-v.,  and 
probably  (as  Ewald  conjectures),  ix.  8 — x.  4,  the  latest 
part  of  this  collection  dating  apparently  from  the  first 
epoch  of  the  war,  circa  735  B.C. 
Second  Period. — Prophecies  at  the  time  of  Ahaz's  resolu- 
tion to  do  homage  to  Assyria,  and  during  the  ensuing 
campaign  of  Tiglath  Pileser  (7 34  B.C.).     Chaps,  vii.  1 — ix. 
7  (chap,  vi.,  recording  Isaiah's  first  vision,  seems  to  have 
been  published  as  a  preface  to  this  collection).     Chap, 
xvii.  1-11  seems  also  to  date  from  the  same  period. 
Third  Period. — The  time  of  Assyrian  domination. 

(ci)  Prophecies  apparently  occasioned  by  the  impend- 
ing fall  of  Samaria,  722-720  B.C.,  or  restating  the 
j)rophet's  position  after  that  event.  Chap,  xxviii. 
(before  the  fall  of  Samaria)  ;  chap.  x.  5 — xi.  (after 
that  event). 
(Jj)  At    the    time   of  the    revolt    of   Ashdod,  711    B.C. 

Chap.  XX. 
(c)  Under  Sennacherib  : — (1)  During  the  first  movements 
of  revolt  in  Philistia,  704  B.C.  Chap.  xiv.  29-32. 
(2)  Prophecies  addressed  to  Judah  while  the  plan 
of  revolt  was  ripening,  704-701  B.C.  Chaps,  xxix.- 
xxxii.   (3)  Against  the  other  nations  in  revolt  against 


LECT.  V.  ISAIAH'S  PROPHECIES.  421 

Assyria.     Cliap.  xxi.  11-17,  Duma  and  tlie  nomads 
of  tlie   Syro- Arabian  desert  ;   chap,  xxiii.,   Tyre  ; 
chap,  xviii.,  Ethiopia  ;  chap,  xix.,  Egypt,     The  re- 
issue of  the  old  prophecy  against  Moab,  chaps,  xv. 
xvi.,  may  belong  to  the  same  period.     (4)  Dui-ing 
the  campaign  in  Judaea,  701  B.C.    Chaps,  i.,  xxii.    (5) 
In  the  last  stage  of  the  campaign,  after  the  fall  of 
the  party  opposed  to  Isaiah.     Chaps,  xxxvii.  6,  7 ; 
xxxvii.  21-35  ;  xxxiii.     (6)  Chaps,  xiv.  24-27  ;  xvii. 
12-14,  seem  to  belong  to  this  period,  but  their 
exact  position  in  it  is  uncertain. 
Irregular  as  the  arrangement  of  these  prophecies  seems  to  be, 
it  is  not  without  a  principle.      Chap.  i.  seems  to  have  been 
prefixed    as    a    general    introduction    to    the    whole    book,  for 
which  its  contents  well  fit  it.     With  this  exception,  the  part 
of  the   book  that  precedes  the  large  Babylonian  prophecy  of 
chaps,  xiii.  xiv.  is  well  arranged,  apart  at  least  from  the  trans- 
position of  ix.  8 — X.  4.      It  contains  two  sections  which  Isaiah 
himself  may  have  published  very  much  as  they  stand,  followed 
by  a  great  and  self-contained  prophecy  against  Assyria,  which 
might  well  be  chosen  as  the  close  of  a  first  attempt  at  a  collected 
edition  of  some  of  Isaiah's  principal  pieces.     Again,  from  chap, 
xiii.  to  chap,  xxiii.  we  have  a  collection  of  prophecies  which, 
with  the  exception  of  chap,  xxii.,  are  all  directed  against  foreign 
nations.      As  it  now  stands,  this  collection  contains  also  Baby- 
lonian prophecies,  and  so  must  be  of  Exilic  or  post-Exilic  date. 
But  the  main  part  of  it  may  well  be  of  earlier  collection,  and 
chaps,  xiii.,  xiv.  1-23,  perhaps  do  not  properly  belong  to  it  at  all. 
Finally,  from  chap.  xxix.  onward  \\q  have  prophecies  of  the  time 
of  Sennacherib  addressed  to  Judah.      That  xxviii.,  which  dates 
from  an  earlier  period,  is  associated  with  these   is   explicable 
from  the  subject,  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  Isaiah  himself  may 
have  published  it  as  a  ])reface  to  the  later  prophecies  with  which 
it  is  now  associated.      The  chief  breaches  of  chronological  order 
are  entirely  due  to  the  plan  adopted  of  putting  the  prophecies 
against  foreign  nations  together,  as  was  also  done  in  the  collec- 
tion of  the  oracles  of  Jeremiah.      A  study  of  the  varying  order 
of  the  several  parts  of  the  last-named  book  in  the  Hebrew  and 
LXX.  respectively  is  the  best  exercise  by  which  one  can  convince 
oneself  that  the  order  in  which  a  collection  now  stands  cannot 
be  held  to  afford  any  sure  clue  to  the  chronological  order. 


422  NOTION  OF  lect.  vi. 

Note  8,  p.  218. — See  Cheyne  on  tlie  passage,  and,  as  regards 
tlie  Cherubim,  his  article  in  JEncyc.  Brit.,  s.v.,  where  references 
to  the  relevant  literature  are  collected.  If  the  Seraphim  are  a 
personification  of  the  lightning  flash  they  have  some  analogy  to 
the  Phoenician  PjC'l  (C  /.  S.,  p.  38). 

Note  9,  p.  224. — On  the  idea  of  holiness  a  great  deal  has 
heen  written.  I  need  only  refer  to  two  of  the  most  recent 
discussions.  Duhm  {Theologie  der  Proiilieten,  p.  169  scq)  lays 
particular  emphasis  on  the  relation  of  the  idea  to  the  worship  of 
God.  The  idea  is  cesthetic  ;  Jehovah's  majesty  presents  itself  as 
holiness  to  the  worshipper  in  the  act  of  worship.  It  would  be 
more  correct  to  say  that  the  idea  of  consecration  to  God  is  a 
religious  or  aesthetic  and  not  strictly  an  ethical  idea  ;  it  becomes 
ethical  in  the  prophets  because  religion  becomes  ethical.  In  the 
elaborate  article  on  the  notion  of  holiness  in  the  Old  Testament 
in  Baudissin's  Studien,  part  ii.  (1878),  there  is  a  useful  collection 
of  material.  The  most  important  thing  in  it,  as  Noldeke 
observes  in  his  review  of  the  book(LiY.  Ceritralbl.,  1879,  No.  12), 
is  the  part  devoted  to  show  that  the  notion  of  holiness  has  not 
the  primary  sense  of  purity.  It  may  be  now  held  as  agreed 
among  scholars  that  the  Arabic  w^ords  on  which  this  idea  was 
based  are  taken  from  the  Greek  kolSos.  That  the  word  is  old 
Arabic  in  the  sense  of  holy  seems  clear  from  Kuds  as  the  name 
of  two  mountains  in  Arabia  (Yakut  iv.  38,  seq. ;  see  also  Noldeke, 
l.  c.) ;  but  its  use  in  the  Koran  is  influenced  by  Judaism ;  the 
word  seems  almost  to  have  disappeared  from  the  ordinary 
Arabic  vocabulary,  and  the  explanation  of  the  commentators 
on  Sur.  ii.  28  that  Jcadasa  fi  H  aril,  like  sabaha  ji  7  ard,  means 
"to  go  far  off"  (Ibn  Sand,  Egn.  ed.,  i.  59),  does  not  go  for 
much.  So  Noldeke  judges  that  the  arguments  from  Arabic  for 
the  sense  of  "  depart "  require  confirmation.  The  Aramaic 
KdCisha,  an  earring,  literally  a  "  holy  thing,"  that  is,  no  doubt, 
an  amulet  (comp.  the  lehdslum  or  amulets  as  articles  of  finery, 
Isa.  iii.  20),  is  noteworthy.  The  remarks  on  the  idea  of  holiness 
in  the  text  of  this  Lecture  are  exclusively  based  on  the  earlier 
parts  of  the  Old  Testament  down  to  the  time  of  Isaiah. 

Lecture  VI. 

Note  1,  p.  236. — In  viii.  1  for  roll  read  tablet.  Tliat  a 
tablet  inscribed  in  large  letters  to  catch  the  eye  of  every  one  is 


LECT.  VI.  HOLINESS.  423 

meant  is  the  plausible  explanation  of  Ewakl,  Projyhelen,  i.  8.  A 
facsimile  of  the  Siloam  inscription,  with  commentary,  etc.,  will 
appear  in  the  forthcoming  part  of  the  Oriental  series  of  the 
Palaeographical  Society. 

Note  2,  p.  239. — The  explanation  of  ix.  14  given  in  the 
following  verse  is  regarded  as  a  later  and  inaccurate  gloss  by 
most  recent  critics. 

Note  3,  p.  246. — On  this  topic,  and  in  general  on  Isaiali's 
theocratic  ideal,  see  Wellhausen,  Geschichte,  i.  431  seq. 

Note  4,  p.  248.— The  HDV  (A.  V.  Branch)  of  Isa.  iv.  2  is 
not,  as  in  Jer.  xxiii.  5,  xxxiii.  15,  a  sprout  from  the  stock  of 
David,  but,  more  generally,  that  which  Jehovah  causes  to  spring 
forth,  viz.  from  the  land,  as  appears  from  the  parallel  "the 
fruit  of  the  land."  This,  I  think,  excludes  all  reference  to  the 
king  of  chap,  xi.,  such  as  is  still  thought  of  by  Lagarde,  Semi- 
tica,  1.  8  seq.,  in  spite  of  his  apt  illustration  from  Semitic 
heathenism,  where  Baal's  land  is,  like  the  land  of  Canaan,  such 
as  derives  fertility  from  the  rains  of  heaven,  not  from  irrigation 
(comp.  Hosea  ii.  21).  The  word  HDV  is  best  rendered,  I  think, 
by  "  spring  "  in  the  old  English  sense  of  young,  fresh  groAvth  (as 
in  Shakspeare's  poems).  This  enables  us  to  keep  up  the  connec- 
tion with  the  cognate  verb,  as  in  Zech.  vi.  1 2  ("  the  man  whose 
name  is  Spring  and  from  under  him  it  shall  spring  up,"  that  is, 
wherever  he  treads  fresh  life  and  growth  follow),  as  well  as  to 
feel  the  identity  of  the  word  in  such  a  passage  as  Psalm  Ixv.  lOj 
"  Thou  blessest  the  springing  thereof." 

Note  5,  p.  250. — In  justification  of  the  Authorised  Version 
in  this  rendering  see  Lagarde,  Semitica,  i.  13. 

Note  6,  p,  251. — Compare  Ewald,  Geschichte,  iii.  664  ;  and 
on  2  Kings  xvi.  1 8,  to  which  allusion  is  made  a  few  lines  down 
the  page,  see  ibid.,  p.  667. 

Note  7,  p.  267. — This  verse,  certainly  mistranslated  in  the 
Authorised  Version,  may  run,  "  In  that  day  shall  his  strong 
cities  be  like  the  deserted  places  of  forest  and  hill-top,  -vvhich 
were  left  desert  before  the  children  of  Israel."  Possibly,  how- 
ever, we  should  correct  by  the  aid  of  the  Septuagint  (Lagarde, 
Semitica,  i.  31)  "the  deserted  places  of  the  Hivite  and  the 
Amorite." 

Note  8,  p.  267. — Flesh  is  never  a  common  article  of  food 
with  the  peasantry  of  Syria.  Bread  and  other  cereal  prepara- 
tions with  milk,  generally  eaten  sour,  and  dibs,  or  grape  honey, 


424  THE  SIGN  IN  lect.  vi. 

are  tlie  ordinary  diet,  as  Seetzen,  for  example,  found  in  the 
Haiiran  (Reisen,  i.  48  ;  comp.  Pro  v.  xxvii.  27  ;  Burckhardt, 
Travels  in  Syria,  1822,  p.  293).  Where  there  is  much  cultiva- 
tion of  cereals  the  supply  of  milk  is  of  course  correspondingly 
limited.  According  to  Isaiah  vii.  22,  the  whole  land  of  Judah 
shall  become  free  pasture  ground,  with  the  result  that  the  kine 
and  ewes  shall  yield  abundance  of  milk,  and  the  man  who  has  a 
young  cow  and  two  sheep  shall  have  abundance  of  milk  for  his 
family,  but  no  bread  or  wine.  As  the  vineyards  are  the  first 
thing  to  be  destroyed,  requiring  as  they  do  the  most  sedulous 
cultivation,  the  honey  mentioned  by  Isaiah  is  doubtless  natural 
honey,  such  as  John  the  Baptist  found  in  the  desert,  or  Jonathan 
in  the  woods.  As  the  wild  bee  frequents  desert  places,  swarm- 
ing in  the  woods  or  in  the  rocky  sides  of  deep  watercourses,  the 
abundance  of  honey  is  another  indication  of  the  desolation  of 
the  land.  At  vii.  15  the  true  rendering  is  that  the  child  whose 
infancy  falls  at  the  time  of  the  destruction  of  Damascus  shall 
eat  butter  and  honey  when  he  is  of  age  to  distinguish  the  good 
from  the  bad.  That  is,  when  his  infancy  begins  to  pass  into 
rational  childhood  the  land  shall  be  already  reduced  to  the  state 
of  depopulation  described  in  verses  2 1  seq. 

Note  9,  p.  272. — The  view  that  the  sign  given  by  Isaiah 
refers  in  its  original  sense  to  the  birth  of  our  Lord  is  still 
upheld  by  Dr.  Kay,  and  some  remarks  on  the  subject,  with  refer- 
ence to  his  argument,  may  not  be  out  of  place.  The  first  point 
is  the  meaning  of  the  word  HOPV  ''ahnah,  rendered  TrdpOevos  by 
the  oldest  version,  and  "  virgin "  in  the  A.  V.  The  w^ord  is 
not  a  very  common  one,  though  rather  commoner  than  the 
masculine  ''elem,  a  young  man  or  lad,  of  which  it  is  the  regular 
feminine.  This  fact  is  alone  sufficient  to  show  that  virginity  is 
not  the  radical  idea,  and  a  comparison  with  the  Arabic  and 
Aramaic  leaves  no  doubt  that  both  in  the  masculine  and  the 
feminine  the  meaning  is  a  young  person  of  marriageable  age. 
There  is  in  fact  another  and  common  w^ord  for  a  virgin  (hethidah). 
Even  the  latter  word  can  be  used  of  a  young  bride  (Joel  i.  8), 
and  when  the  idea  of  virginity  is  to  be  made  prominent  it  is  not 
out  of  place  to  express  it  more  directly  (Gen.  xxiv.  16  ;  Judges 
xxi.  12).  But  is  it  then  at  least  the  case  that  usage  limits  the 
word  "almah  to  a  virgin  ?  The  word  only  occurs  six  times  apart 
from  our  passage ;  twice  it  is  used  of  a  grown-up  girl  still  unmar- 
ried (Gen.  xxiv.  43  ;  Exod.  ii.  8),  twice  it  seems  to  be  used  of 


ISAIAH  VII.  425 


the  slave  girls  of  Solomon's  harem  (Cant.  i.  3  ;  vi.  8).  In  Prov. 
XXX.  19  Dr.  Kay  feels  the  force  of  the  argument  against  his 
view  so  much  that  he  backs  up  his  appeal  to  Hengstenberg  by 
the  suggestion  that  the  passage  is  allegorical  ;  Ps.  Ixviii.  25  may 
be  fairly  taken  with  the  two  passages  first  quoted.  On  the 
whole  the  evidence  does  not  bear  out  the  supposition  that 
virginity  is  an  essential  in  the  notion  ;  though  a  marriageable 
girl  naturally  stands  distinguished  from  a  married  woman,  and 
thus  Isaiah  probably  means  a  young  woman  who  has  not  yet 
been  a  mother.  But  this  suits  the  acceptation  of  the  passage 
which  we  have  adopted.  The  prophet's  point  is  that  before  a 
woman  presently  to  be  married  can  have  a  child  emerging  from 
babyhood  certain  things  will  occur.  That  this  is  at  all  events 
the  correct  determination  of  the  date  which  he  has  in  view  (viz. 
the  following  year)  is  absolutely  clear.  For  the  same  date  is 
given  again  in  the  parallel  prophecy  viii.  3,  4,  by  a  similar  and 
quite  unambiguous  sign. 

The  objection  to  all  this  is  mainly  that  the  sign  offered  by 
Jehovah  must  be  of  a  grander  and  miraculous  character.  But 
what  is  the  nature  of  a  prophetic  "  sign  "  ?  Another  "  sign  " 
given  by  Isaiah  is  his  wallving  naked  and  barefoot  for  three 
years  (xx.  3)  ;  he  and  his  children  are  living  signs  to  Israel 
(viii.  18).  So,  too,  in  Ezek.  iv.  3  ;  xii.  6,  11  ;  xxiv.  24,  27, 
the  signs  are  mere  symbolic  actions  or  God-given  pledges  for  the 
fulfilment  of  His  word.  They  are,  as  it  were,  seals  set  to  pro- 
phecy, by  which  its  truth  can  be  put  to  the  test  in  the  future. 
What  Dr.  Kay  further  urges  for  the  Messianic  references  from 
combination  with  Isa,  ix.  7,  Micah  v.  3,  is  plainly  not  demon- 
strative, for  the  combination  is  not  indicated  in  the  Bible  itself. 

Note  10,  p.  273. — See  Ewald  on  the  passage,  and  Lagarde, 
Semitica,  i.  31  seq.,  where  the  identity  of  Naaman  with  Adonis 
is  ably  maintained.  Note  further  that  the  river  now  called  the 
Nahr  Na'nian  is  the  ancient  Belus,  which  seems  to  confirm  the 
view  that  Na^mfm  is  a  divine  name. 

Note  11,  p.  276. — I  here  follow  what  I  may  call  the  cer- 
tain correction  made  independently  by  Selwyn  and  Studer. 

Lecture  VII. 

Note  1,  p.  279. — At  this  point  the  Assyrian  records  begin 
ix)  be  of  the  highest  service  for  the  history  of  Israel  and  of 


426  RAPHIA.  lect.  vii. 

Isaiah's  work.  I  shall  not  refer  to  them  at  each  point,  but  it 
will  be  convenient  to  indicate  where  English  translations  of 
them  may  be  found.  The  Annals  of  Sargon,  translated  by  M. 
Oppert,  are  given  in  Eec.  of  the  Past,  vol.  vii.,  the  inscription  on 
his  palace  at  Khorsabad,  ibid.,  vol.  ix.,  and  other  inscriptions  of 
the  same  reign  in  vol.  xi.  The  Koyunjik  cylinder,  chiefly 
relied  upon  by  those  who  refer  several  prophecies  of  Isaiah  to 
a  supposed  invasion  and  siege  of  Jerusalem  by  Sargon,  is  trans- 
lated by  George  Smith,  Eponym  Canon,  p.  129  {Assyrian  Dis- 
coveries, p.  289).  It  is,  unhappily,  in  a  very  fragmentary 
condition.  For  the  whole  question  of  the  relations  of  Judah 
with  Sargon,  as  reflected  in  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah,  it  is  enough 
to  refer  to  Mr.  Cheyne's  Prophecies  of  Isaiah,  under  chaps,  i., 
X.  XX,,  but  especially  in  his  introduction  to  chaps,  xxxvi.-xxxix., 
where  the  literature  of  the  subject  is  fully  cited.  It  will  be 
seen  in  the  text  of  this  Lecture  that  I  am  unable  to  follow  tlie 
conclusion  which  has  recommended  itself  to  Mr.  Cheyne  on  tlie 
basis  of  suggestions  by  Dr.  Hincks,  Prof.  Sayce,  and  other 
Assyriologists.  Mr.  Cheyne's  commentary  should  be  taken  along 
with  his  article  Isaiah,  in  the  Encyc.  Brit.,  ninth  ed.,  vol.  xiii. 
In  regard  to  the  bearing  of  the  narrative  of  Kings  on  this 
question,  the  most  satisfactory  discussion  is  that  of  Wellhausen 
in  his  edition  of  Bleek's  Einleituwj  (1878),  p.  254  saj.,  and 
again  in  Encyc.  Brit.,  vol.  xiii.  p.  414. 

Note  2,  p.  280. — Kafia  is  called  Eafeh  by  Mr.  Chester 
{Palestine  Survey  ;  Special  Papers,  p.  Ill),  and  Bir  Refa  in 
Baedeker's  IZancZ&oo/v  to  Palestine,  Route  11.  The  true  Arabic 
name,  however,  is  Eafah  (Yakut,  ii.  796  ;  Istakhry  and  Mokad- 
dasy  scepi'us',  Makrizy,  Hitat  iva-Athar,  i.  189).  Yalait  places  it 
cigliteen  miles  from  Gaza,  at  the  termination  of  the  sandy  desei't, 
with  a  great  sycamore  grove  three  miles  on  the  Gaza  side  of  it. 
It  was,  and  still  is,  regarded  as  the  frontier  between  Egypt  and 
Syria  (Istakhry,  p.  45).  The  latest  notice  of  the  place  is  in  the 
Archduke  Ludwig  Salvator's  Caravan  Route  (Eng.  Tr.  1881,  p. 
54),  witli  a  view  of  the  columns  that  mark  the  site  of  an  ancient 
temple. 

Note  3,  p.  287. — The  difficulties  of  interpretation  that 
encompass  the  book  of  Micah,  and  the  very  corrupt  state  of  some 
parts  of  the  text,  are  well  known,  and  have  received  special 
attention  from  various  critics  since  the  publication  of  the  Com- 
mentarius  in  Vaticinium  Michcti  of  Taco  Roorda  (1869).     Not- 


MIC  AH.  427 


withstanding  the  discussion  by  Stade  in  his  Zeitschrift  for  1881, 
I  still  think  that  chaps,  i.-v.  form  a  single  "svell-connected  book. 
The  question  of  chaps,  vi.-vii.  does  not  belong  to  the  subject  of 
the  present  Lecture.     At  the  same  time,  it  will  be  seen  in  Note 

5  that  the  text  of  Micah  i.-v.  has  suffered  from  interpolation, 
and  it  is  an  open  question  whether,  besides  tlie  passages  there 
spoken  of,  ii.  12,  13  does  not  break  the  connection  and  at  least 
require  to  be  transposed.  There  is,  however,  nothing  in  the 
thought  of  these  verses  which  is  not  perfectly  congruous  with 
chap,  v.,  and  Ewald's  suggestion  that  they  are  inserted  as  a 
specimen  of  false  prophecy  is  therefore  untenable.  The  fiilse 
prophets  of  Micah's  time  flattered  the  rulers  and  supported  the 
status  quo,  while  the  verses  in  question  give  precisely  Micah's 
idea  of  a  rejuvenescence  of  the  mass  of  the  nation  under 
Jehovah  and  Jehovah's  king — a  popular,  not  an  aristocratic 
conception. 

Note  4,  p.  289. — In  Micah  ii.  8,  and  similarly  in  Isa.  xxx. 
33,  the  punctuation  PIDDX  is  not  meant  to  be  a  variation  of 
PiDDN,  but  expresses  a  different  exegetical  tradition,  in  which  the 
phrase  is  explained  from  ^yo-,  "  over  against."  In  Isaiah  both 
traditions  (and  so  both  pronunciations)  are  ancient,  but  that  with 

6  probably  more  ancient  (LXX.,  Aq.,  Sym.,  Theod.,  Syr.).  The 
conflate  rendering  of  the  Targum  expresses  both.  In  Micah 
the  weight  of  tradition  is  for  H  (Aq.,  Hieron.,  Tgm.,  as  against 
Sym.  and  perhaps  LXX.  -,  Syr.  thinking  of  the  root  XP?^)-  The 
variation  can  be  traced  down  into  the  time  of  the  pointed  text ; 
see  Cod.  Petroj').,  edited  by  Strack,  where  in  each  place  a  later 
hand  has  put  S  for  it.  The  passage,  then,  is  one  in  which  there 
was  an  early  divergence  of  tradition,  and  in  which  therefore  we 
are  thrown  back  on  the  consonantal  text,  which  probably  had 
originally  no  1.  But  the  opposition  of  vers.  7,  8  is  that  of  sharp 
contrast,  which  suggests  that  we  should  begin  with  a  pronoun 
DriXI.       Combining    this   conjecture   with   Eoorda's    n^obb'    for 

HD^bS  the  latter  of  which  gives  no  good  sense,  and  omitting  one 
of  the  four  consecutive  mems  (D^P^  for  Dpipl)  or  reading  t^J^'ip'l 
for  CDloipri^,  (which,  though  less  likely,  is  certainly  possible,  01s. 
§  68,  h),  we  get  the  sense,  "  But  ye  are  to  My  people  as  a  foe 
rising  up  against  one  that  is  at  peace  with  him  ;  ye  strip  off  the 
cloak  from  them  that  pass  by  securely,  averse  from  [not  think- 
ing of]  war."     For  "llX  we  probably  should  read  miN,  the  final 


428  MIC  AH.  LECT.  vii. 

n  liaving  disappeared  in  tliat  following,  and  the  garment  meant 
is  probably  the  liairy  mantle  which,  as  worn  by  the  prophets, 
was  doubtless  the  garment  of  the  simpler  classes.  Of  interpre- 
tations retaining  the  present  text  the  most  ingenious  is  certainly 
that  of  Abuhvalid  (col.  764),  who  anticipates  Roorda  in  taking 

?^?0nX  as  "  against."  The  almost  total  neglect  of  this  greatest 
of  medioeval  Hebraists  by  expositors  subsequent  to  Gesenius  is 
much  to  be  deplored. 

Note  5,  p.  290. — The  words  p^Q'iy  51X31  are  rejected  as 
a  gloss  by  Noldeke  in  Schenkel's  Bibel-Lexikon,  iv.  214  (1872), 
and  by  Kuenen,  Theol.  Tijdsch.,  1872,  p.  291.  Kuenen  forcibly 
points  out  that  a  precisely  similar  gloss  has  been  introduced  by 
the  LXX.  in  ver.  8.  That  the  words  are  no  part  of  the  original 
context  appears,  I  think,  very  clearly  from  the  sense.  To  say 
that  the  daughter  of  Zion  shall  be  delivered  in  Babylon  from 
the  hand  of  all  her  enemies  gives  no  good  sense.  We  can 
speak  of  deliverance  from  captivity,  but  not  of  deliverance  in 
it.  On  the  other  hand,  to  say  that  the  population  of  Zion  shall 
be  delivered  in  the  field,  i.e.  in  the  open  country,  agrees,  as  is 
shown  in  the  text  of  the  Lecture,  with  the  context  and  the 
general  tenor  of  Micah's  thought.  The  words  "  And  thou  shalt 
come  unto  Babylon  "  cannot,  however,  be  the  only  interpolation 
in  chap,  i^^.,  for  the  impossibility  of  reconciling  vers.  11-13  with 
ver.  10  is  plain.  According  to  ver.  10  Zion  shall  be  captured 
by  the  enemy,  and  this  agrees  with  iii.  12.  But  in  the  follow- 
ing verses  the  besieging  hosts  of  many  nations  are  broken 
beneath  the  walls  of  Jerusalem.  The  force  of  this  difficulty 
has  been  recognised  by  most  recent  writers  on  the  question,  by 
Oort  {Theol.  Tijdsch.,  1872,  p.  507);  Kuenen  {ibid.,  1872,  p. 
62 — in  the  later  paper  already  cited  he  endeavours  to  meet  the 
difficulty)  ;  Wellhausen  (Bleek's  Einl,  4th  ed.,  p.  426)  ;  Stade 
{Z.f.  AT.  JF.,18S1,  J).  167);  and  Steiner  {ad  I.).  The  solutions 
proposed  are  various,  but  the  simplest  seems  to  be  that  of  Oort, 
who  treats  vers.  11-13  as  an  interpolation.  In  accepting  Oort's 
view  thus  far,  I  by  no  means  agree  with  his  general  treatment 
of  the  passage,  which,  as  Kuenen  has  remarked  {I.  c),  has  no 
necessary  connection  with  the  genuineness  of  the  verses  in 
question.  Stade,  who  separates  out  the  whole  pericope,  iv.  11- 
V.  4  {Hch.,  V.  3)  as  a  separate  prophecy,  seems  to  me  to  miss  the 
point  of  the  prophet's  thought. 

Note  6,  p.  291. — The  sinfulness  of  these  things  is  elsewhere 


LECT.  VII.  S ARGON,  429 

emphasised  by  the  prophets,  inasmuch  as  they  are  earthly  things 
which  come  between  man  and  Jehovah  (Isa.  ii.).  But  the  tliought 
of  Micah  goes  further  than  this.  Hosea  had  taught  that  Judah 
shall  not  be  delivered  by  horses  and  horsemen,  but  also  not  by 
weapons  of  human  war  (i.  7  ;  ii.  18).  Micah,  though  he  looks 
forward  to  a  reign  of  peace  among  the  nations,  thinks  of  Judah 
as  delivered  by  the  sword  (v.  6).  His  objection  to  fortresses  and 
horses  is  not  an  objection  to  war.  Nor  is  it  a  mere  objection 
to  the  misuse  of  these  things.  They  are  themselves  out  of  place 
in  restored  Israel.  This  is  parallel  to  Deut.  xvii.  16,  where 
the  multiplication  of  horses  is  spoken  of  as  a  fault  in  the  king. 
Horses  and  chariots  were  in  fact  in  ancient  times  the  counter- 
part of  the  standing  armies  and  artillery  of  which  free  peoples 
in  modern  times  have  been  naturally  jealous  as  dangerous  to 
liberty.  And  the  maintenance  of  the  royal  establishment  of 
horses  was  accompanied  by  oppressive  exactions,  as  we  see  from 
1  Kings  xviii.  5,  and  the  mention  of  the  first  grass  crop  as  the 
"  king's  mowings  "  in  Amos  vii.  7. 

Note  7,  p.  297. — A  few  words  may  here  be  added  on  the 
special  points  in  the  prophecies  assigned  by  Mr.  Clieyne  to  the  in- 
vasion of  Sargon,  which  he  lays  stress  on  as  hardly  consistent  with 
a  reference  to  the  wars  of  701.  On  chap.  i.  the  argument  that 
there  are  no  points  of  contact  between  this  prophecy  and  those 
composed  with  reference  to  Sennacherib's  invasion  is  not  valid 
if  we  distinguish  in  that  campaign  two  periods,  one  before 
Hezekiah's  submission,  and  another  after  the  shameless  breach  of 
faith  of  which  Sennacherib  was  guilty,  in  demanding  the  sur- 
render of  the  fortress  of  Zion,  after  he  had  come  to  terms  with 
Hezekiah.  That  the  sketch  of  the  moral  and  religious  con- 
dition of  Judah  will  not  aj)ply  to  Hezekiah's  time  is  also  an 
assumption  based  on  the  view  that  the  reforms  of  that  king 
preceded  the  repulse  of  Sennacherib,  which  is,  at  all  events, 
very  doubtful  (see  Lect.  VIII.).  In  chap.  xxii.  "  the  severe  tone  of 
the  prophecy "  is  again  to  be  explained  by  referring  it  to  the 
siege  in  the  first  part  of  the  campaign,  when  Hezekiah  made 
submission  to  Sennacherib.  \\\  chaps,  xxix.-xxxii.  ^Mr.  Cheync 
himself  does  not  seem  to  reject  the  reference  to  Sennacherib,  in 
spite  of  his  remark  at  p.  155,  that  they  "were  evidently 
delivered  at  various  stages  of  the  Assyrian  intervention  under 
Sargon."     See  his  notes  on  xxx.  29,  33. 

Note  8,  p.  298. — Several  points  of  contact  between  Isa.  x.  xi. 


430  MESSIANIC  lect.  vii. 


and  Isa,  xxviii.  (x.  12  :  xxviii.  21;  x.  23:  xxviii.  22;  x.  26: 
xxviii.  15,  18)  have  been  pointed  out  by  Ewald  and  Cheyne,  and 
to  these  may  be  added  x.  20  :  xxviii.  15  ;  xi.  2  :  xxviii.  6.  In 
their  whole  conception,  indeed,  the  two  chapters  are  most  closely 
allied,  the  essential  points  of  difference  being  («)  that  in  the  one 
Samaria  lias  fallen,  in  the  other  is  only  about  to  fall ;  (6)  that 
chap,  xxviii.  is  mainly  addressed  to  the  godless  rulers,  while 
chaps.  X.  xi.,  in  which  very  little  reference  is  made  to  the  sin  of 
Judah,  seem  rather  to  be  a  word  of  comfort  to  the  true  remnant 
— primarily  we  may  suppose  to  Isaiah's  o-\vn  circle.  The  thought 
that  Judah  and  Assyria  cannot  long  remain  on  terms  appears 
already  in  xxviii.  20,  and,  taken  with  the  lesson  of  the  fall  of 
Samaria,  would  easily  lead  to  the  thought  of  the  decisive  con- 
test of  chap.  X.,  without  the  intervention  of  any  actual  war 
between  Judah  and  Israel.  Further,  that  chap.  xi.  was  written 
at  a  considerably  earlier  date  than  the  prophecies  of  the  reign 
of  Sennacherib  seems  probable  from  the  x^rominence  given  in 
the  former  chapter  to  the  new  Davidic  kingship,  in  that  con- 
trast to  the  old  monarchy  which  disappears  in  later  prophecies. 
The  chief  reason  why  many  commentators  feel  themselves 
oblicred  to  refer  x.  xi.  to  a  time  of  actual  war  is  the  extraor- 

o 

dinary  vividness  and  detail  of  the  description  of  the  approach 
of  the  Assyrian  through  the  pass  of  Michmash.  We  know, 
however,  that  Sennacherib's  advance  was  not  made  by  this  road, 
which  disposes  at  all  events  of  the  still  not  quite  abandoned 
theory  of  a  vaticinium  ex  eventu.  Moreover,  if  Isaiah  wrote  this 
prophecy,  as  has  also  been  supposed  by  some,  when  the  Assyrian 
was  already  close  at  hand,  he  could  not  have  chosen  this  route 
for  his  descrii^tion,  for  it  must  have  been  plain  from  the 
beginning  of  the  campaign  that  Sennacherib's  plan  was  to 
advance  by  the  sea-coast.  In  any  case,  therefore,  the  picture  is 
an  ideal  one,  and  Isaiah  gives  it  the  most  impressive  form  pos- 
sible by  depicting  an  advance  from  the  North  by  way  of  Scopus. 
His  thought  is  that  from  the  conquered  land  of  Samaria  the 
Assyrian  will  move  on  against  Jerusalem ;  his  progress  is  south- 
wards in  steady  course,  and  this  determines  the  details. 

Note  9,  p.  307. — The  first  and  last  of  the  four  names 
bestowed  on  the  child  of  Isa.  ix.  6  certainly  do  not  imply  any- 
thing that  involves  a  transcendental  personality.  The  king  who 
is  equipped  as  is  described  in  chap.  xi.  may  well  be  called 
"Wonderful  Counsellor"  (these  words  are  to  be  united  in  a 


LECT.  VIII.  PROPHECY.  431 

single  idea  as  in  D1i<  t?")Q,  Gen.  xvi.  12),  and  "  Prince  of  Peace." 
The  interpretation  of  tlie  third  name  is  disputed.  It  is  some- 
times taken  to  mean  "  Father  of  booty,"  but  at  all  events  the 
phrase  "  everlasting  mountains  "  (Hab.  iii.  C)  shows  that  it  has 
not  the  transcendental  idea  of  eternity.  The  words  in  Hebrew 
which  we  render  by  eternity  mean  only  a  duration  the  com- 
mencement or  completion  of  which  lies  in  the  mist  of  extreme 
remoteness,  or  is  not  contemplated  by  the  speaker.  ^'God  the 
mighty  one,"  construed  as  an  apposition,  is  a  quite  unique  name, 
such  appositional  forms  not  occurring  in  pure  Hebrew  names  of 
persons  (Olshausen,  Sprachlehrhich,  p.  613).  If  we  rendered  it 
"  God  is  the  mighty  one,"  it  would  be  parallel  to  such  names  as 
Elnaam,  "  God  is  graciousness  ;"  Eliphelet  or  Elphelet,  "  God  is 
deliverance  ;"  Joah,  "Jehovah  is  a  broth-er."  But,  according  to 
Hebrew  idiom,  a  being  in  whom  is  God's  name  is  one  through 
which  God  manifests  Himself  to  men,  and  so  the  prophet  prob- 
ably means  this  wondrous  name  to  describe  the  manifestation 
of  Jehovah's  kingship  through  His  human  representative.  It  is 
through  the  New  Testament  that  we  learn  that  a  complete  and 
adequate  manifestation  of  God  to  man  can  only  be  made  through 
a  God-man. 

Note  10,  p.  309. — The  relation  of  these  two  passages  has 
been  so  often  and  fully  discussed  that  it  is  needless  to  go  into  it 
again.  It  seems  to  be  quite  clearly  made  out  that  Micah  does 
not  quote  from  Isaiah,  but  also  there  are  no  indications  in  the 
context  that  he  quotes  from  any  one  at  all,  while  the  idea  that 
the  passage  stands  in  Isaiah  as  the  text  for  the  remarks  that 
follow  is  somewhat  arbitrary  and  hardly  borne  out  by  the  con- 
text. The  opening  words  at  Isa.  ii.  2  show  that  the  passage  as 
it  stands  in  Isaiah  is  divorced  from  its  original  connection,  and 
it  has  just  enough  of  apparent  bearing  on  ii.  5  to  make  it  ]ios- 
sible  that  a  copyist  inserted  it  at  that  pLace. 

Lecture  VIII. 

Note  1,  p.  317. — The  Assyrian  inscriptions  bearing  on  this 
revolt  are  given  in  G.  Smith's  posthumous  History  of  Sennacherib, 
1878;  Eponym  Canon,]).  131.  See  also  Alexander  Polyhistor, 
ap.  Euseb.,  Cliron.,  ed.  Schoene,  vol.  1.  p.  27  ;  G.  Syncellus  (Bonn 
ed.),  vol.  i.  p.  391.  The  Assyrians  ruled  Babylon  by  means 
of  a  vassal  king,  and  so  the  two  years  "  without  a  king  "  in  the 


432  SENNACHERIB'S  lect.  viii. 


Canon  given  by  Syncelliis  are  those  of  Meroclach  Baladan's  revolt. 
His  embassy  to  Judah  can  bardly  fall  later  tlian  704. 

Note  2,  p.  319. — The  title  prefixed  to  this  prophecy  (xiv. 
28)  refers  it  to  the  year  of  Ahaz's  death.  In  that  case  Ahaz 
must  be  the  fallen  oppressor  of  the  Philistines,  and  Hezekiah 
the  new  and  more  teri-ible  conqueror,  and  this  view  is  supported 
by  those  who  accept  the  title  (e.^.,  Delitzsch,  ad  loc),  by  reference 
to  the  victories  of  Hezekiah  over  the  Philistines,  2  Kings  xviii. 
8.  But  in  ver.  31  the  destroying  force  is  unquestionably  the 
Assyrian,  as  Delitzsch  himself  admits,  and  thus  the  title  breaks 
the  unity  of  the  oracle.  If  Hezekiah  continued  a  dominion 
over  the  Philistines  commenced  in  the  reign  of  his  father,  both 
must  have  done  so  as  agents  of  the  Assyriau.  There  is  no  trace 
of  this,  and  in  any  case  such  a  supremacy  could  hardly  have 
afforded  the  motive  for  our  prophecy.  It  is  possible  that 
Hezekiah's  operations  in  Philistia  were  connected  with  the  rising 
against  Sennacherib,  when  he  seems  to  have  been  accepted  as 
head  of  the  Philistine  revolt,  and  held  Padi  the  Assyrian  vassal- 
king  of  Ekron  as  a  captive.  Or  more  probably  the  reference  in 
Kings  is  to  operations  undertaken  after  the  defeat  of  Senna- 
cherib to  recover  the  districts  which,  as  we  learn  from  the 
monuments,  Sennacherib  in  the  first  prosperous  part  of  his 
expedition  detached  from  Judah  and  handed  over  to  the 
sovereigns  of  Ashdod,  Ekron,  and  Gaza.  Before  the  war  with 
Sennacherib,  at  all  events,  it  was  with  Assyria,  not  with  Hezekiah, 
that  the  Philistines  had  to  reckon,  and  it  is  to  Assyria  that  the 
prophecy  clearly  points.  The  titles  of  prophecies  have  by  no 
means  the  same  authority  as  the  text  ;  they  are  often  demon- 
strably incorrect  and  mere  late  conjectures.  In  the  present  case 
the  conjecture  may  have  been  founded  on  the  Eabbinical 
exegesis  expressed,  as  Bochart  has  noticed,  in  the  Targum,  which 
makes  the  root  of  the  serpent  (Nahash)  mean  the  stock  of  Jesse, 
according  to  the  well-known  identification  of  Jesse  with  the 
Nahash  of  2  Sam.  xvii.  25.  If  the  prophecy  refers  to  the  death 
of  an  Assyrian  monarch,  it  is  Sargon,  not  Shalmaneser,  who  must 
naturally  be  thou  g]  it  of. 

Note  3,  p.  322. — The  Altaku  of  the  monuments  (in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Tamna  or  Timnath)  is  generally  and  plausibly 
identified  with  the  Eltekeh  of  Josh.  xix.  44  ;  xxi.  23,  of  which 
nothing  further  is  known,  except  that  it  lay  like  Timnatli  in 
Danitc  territoiy. 


LECT.  VIII.  CAMPAIGN.  433 

Note  4,  p.  335. — It  uas,  I  tliink,  a  saying  of  Napoleon,  tliat 
under  a  good  government  tlie  Delta  encroaches  on  the  desert, 
while  under  a  bad  government  the  desert  encroaches  on  the 
•Delta.  Not  only  are  the  public  works,  the  great  canals,  apt  to 
fall  into  ruin  under  a  bad  government,  but  the  peasantry,  having 
no  security  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  fruit  of  theii'  labour,  will 
not  do  their  jmrt.  Thus  every  traveller  by  the  overland  route 
to  India  must  have  been  struck  with  the  small  amount  of  culti- 
vation along  the  banks  of  the  great  freshwater  canal.  The 
water  w^as  there,  provided  at  the  cost  of  many  thousand  lives, 
but  there  was  not  such  confidence  in  the  ec[uity  of  Ismail 
Pasha  as  to  encourage  cultivators  to  risk  their  capital  in 
improvements  which  might  be  rendered  worthless  in  a  moment 
by  a  rise  in  the  water-rate  or  by  the  water  being  cut  off.  The 
real  cure  for  the  miseries  of  Egypt  is  still  a  government  in 
which  the  people  can  have  sufficient  confidence  to  venture  to 
help  themselves,  and  to  utilise  the  vast  number  of  small  hoards 
now  lying  buried  in  the  earth  or  in  holes  in  the  walls  of  houses. 
It  is  not  free  institutions,  but  a  just  and  firm  administration 
that  is  beneficial  to  the  East. 

Note  5,  p.  336. — On  the  discussion  as  to  the  authorship  of 
Isa.  xix.  16-25  see  Cheyne's  introduction  to  the  chapter;  Kuenen, 
Onderzoeh,  ii.  74.  The  passage  may  have  been  retouched,  and  at 
least  the  variants  on  the  name  of  the  city  in  ver.  18  (city  of 
destruction,  city  of  the  sun,  city  of  righteousness)  may  have 
something  to  do  with  the  Onias  temple  at  Leontopolis  ;  but  that 
an  interpolation  in  favour  of  this  sanctuary  could  have  entered 
the  Hebrew  text,  as  Hitzig  and  Geiger  suj^pose,  is  hardly  possible. 
And  the  allusion  to  the  consecrated  mac9eba,  ver.  19,  is  quite 
inconsistent  with  a  date  subsequent  to  the  reformation  of  Josiah 
and  the  acceptance  of  the  Deuteronomic  law  of  worship. 

Note  6,  p.  345. — The  variety  of  opinion  as  to  the  history 
of  the  relations  of  Assyria  to  Judah,  to  which  reference  has  been 
made  in  the  notes  on  last  Lecture,  is  nowhere  more  remarkable 
than  in  the  accounts  given  by  different  historians  and  expositors 
of  Sennacherib's  campaign  in  Jiidah.  The  opinion  which 
distinguishes  two  invasions  under  Sargon  and  Sennacherib 
respectively  has  been  already  discussed  and  rejected.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  theory  of  Professor  Rawlinson  that  Sennacherib 
was  twice  in  Judaea  (b.c.  701,  and  again  B.C.  699),  that 
Hezekiah's  surrender  and  tribute  belong  to  the  first  occasion  and 


434  SENNACHERIB'S  lect.  viii. 


tlie  great  deliverance  to  the  second  {Ancient  Monarchies^  ii.  165), 
lias  no  basis  whatever  except  pure  conjecture.  Sennacherib 
seems  to  have  been  in  quite  a  different  quarter  in  the  latter  year 
(Smith,  History  of  Sennacherib,  p.  87).  It  is  therefore  necessary 
to  place  both  the  surrender  and  the  deliverance  of  Jerusalem,  as 
recorded  in  Kings,  in  the  campaign  of  701.  The  first  part  of 
the  campaign,  in  which  the  Assyrians  were  victorious,  is  de- 
scribed in  Kings  exactly  as  on  the  monuments  (see  Encyc.  Brit., 
xiii.  4 1 4).  That  Sennacherib  does  not  relate  the  calamity  which 
subsequently  befell  his  host  and  compelled  him  to  retire  is  quite 
what  we  should  expect  from  the  exclusively  boastful  style  of  the 
Assyrian  monuments,  and  his  record  is  manifestly  imperfect,  for 
it  does  not  tell  how  Sennacherib  settled  matters  with  Tirhakah 
or  mention  the  conclusion  of  peace  with  him.  Further,  the 
immediate  outbreak  of  a  fresh  rebellion  in  Babylon  and  the  fact 
that  Sennacherib  did  not  again  appear  to  make  war  on  Egypt 
are  clear  proofs  that  his  retreat  was  inglorious,  in  spite  of  the 
spoil  he  carried  home  from  Judah.  But  it  is  arbitrary  in 
Schrader  and  Duncker  to  suppose  that  the  battle  of  Eltekeh  was 
really  the  last  event  in  the  camjiaign,  and  was  a  virtual  defeat. 
That  battle  was  merely  due  to  an  attempt  to  raise  the  siege  of 
Ekron,  and  the  operations  farther  south  at  Libnah  and  Lachish 
must  have  occurred  subsequently.  It  is  plain,  too,  from  the 
Egyptian  tradition  given  in  Herodotus  that  the  Egyptians  had  a 
knowledge  of  the  campaign  and  defeat  of  the  Assyrians,  but  did 
not  ascribe  it  to  their  own  prowess.  It  is  very  probable  that 
the  mice  which  figure  in  the  legend  in  Herodotus  are  a  symbol 
of  pestilence  (Hitzig,  Gesch.  d.  V.  Israel,  p.  125,  222  ;  Urgeschichte 
cler  Philistder,  p.  201  ;  Wellhausen  on  1  Sam.  vi.  4),  in  which 
case  the  Egyptian  mythus  points  to  the  true  account  as  given  in 
the  Bible. 

Note  7,  p.  345. — The  first  chapter  of  Isaiah  must  have 
been  written  at  this  time.  It  cannot  well  belong  to  the  Syro- 
Ephraitic  war,  which,  when  the  theory  of  invasion  under  Sargon 
is  rejected,  is  the  only  other  date  that  comes  into  consideration  ; 
for  then  the  distress  had  not  reached  such  a  j)itch  as  Isaiah 
describes.  The  points  of  contact  with  the  contemporary  chap, 
xxii.  are  manifest.  The  wicked  rulers  of  chap.  i.  are  the 
associates  of  Shebna  in  chap.  xxii.  Even  the  many  sacrifices  of 
i.  11  seq.  reappear  at  xxii.  13,  for  at  that  time  feast  and  sacri- 
fice were  identical ;  and  the  comparison  of  the  two  texts  throws 


LECT.  VIII.  CAMPAIGN.  435 

an  instructive  liglit  on  the  popular  worship  as  it  displayed  itself 
among  Isaiah's  opponents.  The  reading  which  I  have  adopted 
in  i.  7  is  that  of  Ewald,  Lagarde,  Cheyne,  and  others. 

Note  8,  p.  350. — Eabshakeh's  attempt  to  gain  the  populace 
to  his  side  was  perhaps  suggested  by  the  course  of  the  previous 
siege  Avhen,  as  Sennacherib  relates,  the  garrison  of  Jerusalem 
"inclined  to  submission"  (Smith,  Sennacherib,  p.  63;  Duncker, 
ii.  365). 

Note  9,  p.  351. — I  here  follow  the  brilliant  correction  of 
Wellhausen  (Bleek's  Einleitung,  p.  257),  which  has  found 
general  acceptance. 

Note,  10,  p.  352. — I  cannot  see  that  the  Bible  narrative,  as 
Mr.  Cheyne  supposes,  implies  that  the  calamity  attacked  a  part 
of  Sennacherib's  army  lying  before  Jerusalem.  It  seems  to 
have  been  the  main  body  of  the  host  that  suffered,  presumably 
on  the  borders  of  Egypt,  as  we  learn  from  the  monuments  that 
Sennacherib  took  Lachish,  from  the  siege  of  which  he  sent  his 
last  summons  to  Hezekiah, 

Note  11,  p.  363.— The  idea  of  the  one  sanctuary,  the  place 
chosen  by  Jehovah  out  of  all  the  tribes  of  Israel  to  put  His 
name  there,  and  at  which  alone  Israel's  homage  can  be  accept- 
ably offered,  is  formulated  in  the  book  of  Deuteronomy — espe- 
cially in  chap.  xii. — and  is  presupposed  in  the  Priestly  Legisla- 
tion. In  the  latter  it  appears  as  a  fixed  idea,  traditionally 
established,  and  no  longer  requiring  explanation  or  justification. 
Indeed,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  the  fundamental  idea 
of  the  Priestly  Legislation  is  not  the  unity  of  the  sanctuary  but 
the  prerogative  of  the  Aaronic  priesthood  and  ritual.  The 
sanctuary  at  which  these  are  found  is  the  only  true  sanctuary, 
because  only  at  it  can  Jehovah  be  approached  through  the 
mediators,  and  under  the  ceremonial  forms,  apart  from  which  He 
is  either  altogether  inaccessible,  or  manifests  Himself  only  in 
wrath.  Of  this  point  of  view  there  is  absolutely  no  trace  in 
the  history  before  the  Exile  ;  it  appears  exclusively  in  the  priestly 
parts  of  the  Hexateuch  and  in  the  Chronicles,  and  this  is  one  of 
the  most  notable  general  facts  which  combine  with  a  multitude 
of  special  arguments  to  establish  the  post -Exile  date  of  the 
Priestly  Legislation.  For  nothing  is  historically  more  certain 
than  that  the  doctrine  of  the  exclusive  privilege  of  the  priest- 
hood of  Aaron,  in  the  sense  of  the  Priestly  Legislation,  did  not 
yet  exist  at  the  time  when  Josiah  brought  up  the  priests  of  the 


436  THE  ONE  lect.  viii. 

high  places  to  Jerusalem  and  nourished  them  on  the  unleavened 
bread  of  the  sanctuary  along  with  their  "brethren"  of  the 
house  of  Zadok,  or  even  at  the  time  of  Ezekiel,  to  whom  the 
privilege  of  the  Zadokites  is  still  a  law  for  the  future,  not  a 
fixed  religious  principle  of  the  past.  In  the  book  of  Deutero- 
nomy, on  the  other  hand,  the  unity  of  the  sanctuary  stands  by 
itself,  and  rests  on  argument  derived  from  the  prophets  of  the 
eighth  century.  To  the  Deuteronomist,  as  to  the  prophets,  it 
appears  as  an  essential  of  true  religion  to  maintain  the  separa- 
tion between  the  worship  of  Israel  and  the  worship  of  the 
Canaanite  holy  places.  Jehovah  is  to  be  worshipped  in  a  single 
sanctuary  of  His  own  choosing,  in  order  that  His  service  may  be 
kept  free  from  heathenish  elements.  In  this  argument  the 
question  of  the  hierarchy  has  no  place  :  the  law  of  Deuteronomy 
is  a  solution  of  the  problem,  which  became  practical  after  the 
victory  of  Isaiah,  how  the  national  worship  can  be  reorganised 
so  as  to  answer  the  conditions  of  sacrificial  cultus,  while  yet 
excluding  all  danger  of  Canaanite  influence.  The  lines  in 
which  the  solution  is  sought  are  not,  however,  explicitly  sug- 
gested either  by  Isaiah  or  Micah,  neither  of  whom  draws  an 
express  contrast  between  the  legitimate  altar  and  the  provincial 
holy  places.  Between  the  prophetic  condemnation  of  the 
popular  worship  and  the  Deuteronomic  plan  of  worship  central- 
ised in  one  sanctuary  a  link  is  wanting,  and  that  link  is  found  in 
the  shape  assumed  by  Hezekiah's  reforms  under  the  special 
conditions  of  the  land  at  the  time  when  the  provincial 
sanctuaries  had  been  destroyed  by  Sennacherib.  Hezekiah's 
reforms  were  not  permanent  because  they  were  largely  guided 
by  temporary  circumstances.  The  Deuteronomic  code  endeavours 
to  develop  an  adequate  and  permanent  scheme  for  the  whole 
worship  of  Israel,  in  which  the  principle  of  centralisation  is 
carried  out  in  all  its  consequences,  and  adapted  to  every  require- 
ment of  social  life.  See  the  argument  for  this  in  detail,  0.  T.  in 
J.  Ch.,  Lect.  xii. 

Here,  however,  the  question  arises,  how  far  the  religious 
pre-eminence  which  was  thus  accorded  to  Zion  corresponded 
with  tendencies  already  at  work  before  the  catastrophe  of  Senna- 
cherib, and  which  might  have  ultimately  produced  the  same 
resulteven  in  other  circumstances.  We  have  first  to  consider 
the  attitude  taken  up  towards  Zion  by  the  prophets.  According 
to  Amos  i.  2,  Jehovah  roars  from  Zion  and  sends  forth  His 


LECT.  VIII.  SANCTUARY.  437 

voice  from  Jerusalem.  Zion,  therefore,  to  tliis  Jiidsean  prophet 
is  already  the  centre  of  Jehovah's  self-manifestation.  But  the 
2:>rophetic  doctrine  of  Jehovah's  manifestation  in  judgment  has 
nothing  to  do  with  His  appearance  to  His  people  in  their  acts  of 
worship.  To  Amos  the  organs  of  Jehovah's  intercourse  with 
His  people  are  not  the  priests,  but  the  prophets  and  Nazarites 
(ii.  12).  Jehovah's  relation  to  "  His  people  Israel "  is  that  of 
the  supreme  judge  :  not  the  temple  but  the  tent  of  David  occu- 
pies the  central  place  in  his  picture  of  restoration  ;  the  future 
glory  of  Jerusalem  consists  in  its  restoration  to  the  position  of 
a  great  capital,  the  centre  of  a  dominion  embracing  the  vassal 
nations,  "  over  whom  Jehovah's  name  was  called  "  in  the  days  of 
David.  The  last  expression  shows  most  clearly  how  little  the 
idea  of  worship  at  the  sanctuary  of  Jerusalem  has  to  do  with 
Amos's  notion  of  the  religious  importance  of  Zion  ;  the  subjects 
of  the  house  of  David  are,  as  such,  subjects  of  Jehovah.  We 
sliall  not  err,  then,  if  we  say  that  to  Amos  Zion  is  the  seat  of 
divine  manifestation  because  it  is  the  seat  of  the  Davidic  king- 
dom. Precisely  in  the  same  way  the  tent  of  David  appears  in 
a  position  of  central  importance  in  the  old  prophecy,  Isa.  xvi. 
It  is  in  this  relation  also  that  Zion  holds  a  central  place  in  the 
ideal  of  Isaiah  and  Micah.  Jehovah  manifests  Himself  on  Zion, 
not  at  the  altar  but  on  the  throne  of  judgment.  And  so  in 
Isa.  xix.  the  conversion  of  Egypt  is  followed  by  the  worship  of 
Jehovah,  not  at  the  altar  of  Jerusalem,  but  within  the  land  of 
Egypt  itself.  The  tributary  homage  of  Tyre  and  Ethiopia 
(Isa.  xviii.  7  ;  xxiii.  1 8)  is  paid  to  the  capital  of  Jehovah's  king- 
dom, and  enriches  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem,  not  the  priests. 
Had  tlie  priests  been  meant  in  Isa.  xxiii.  18,  the  prophet  would 
have  said,  "them  that  stand  before  Jehovah."  At  the  same 
time  it  is  obvious  that  the  temple  had  necessarily  a  great  jjre- 
eminence  over  all  other  holy  places  because  it  was  the  royal, 
and  so  in  a  sense  the  national,  sanctuary.  This  comes  out  most 
clearly  in  the  old  war-hymn  for  a  king  of  Judah,  Ps.  xx. 
Another  point  which  doubtless  had  great  weight  with  the  masses 
was  the  presence  of  the  ark  in  Zion.  That  the  ark  was  the 
token  of  Jehovah's  presence  was  the  ancient  belief  of  Israel,  and 
appears  in  a  striking  way  in  2  Sam.  xv.  25.  On  the  old  view 
the  ark  was  the  sanctuary  of  the  armies  of  Israel,  which  led 
them  to  battle,  and  the  words  of  David  in  the  passage  just  cited 
are  noteworthy  as  forming  in  a  certain  sense  the  transition  from 


438  HOLINESS  lect,  viii. 

this  view  to  tliat  embodied  in  Solomon's  temple,  that  Jehovah 
has  now  taken  up  His  permanent  dwelling-place  in  the  seat  of 
kingvship.  In  this  there  lies  a  real  step  towards  religious  cen- 
tralisation— only,  we  know  that  no  inference  was  practically- 
drawn  from  it  for  the  abolition  or  limitation  of  local  worship. 
All  that  is  historically  certain  is  that  the  autumn  feast  at  Jeru- 
salem, and  2^erhaps  the  passover  there,  became  great  pilgrimage 
feasts.  In  this  sense  Isaiah  himself  seems  to  recognise  Jerusalem 
as  the  religious  centre  of  the  land  (xxx.  29  ;  xxxiii.  20),  and 
here  we  must,  no  doubt,  seek  another  practical  facilitation  of 
the  centralisation  of  worship.  But  the  prophets  lay  no  weight 
on  the  ark  as  the  central  point  of  Jerusalem's  holiness.  To 
Isaiah  the  whole  mountain  land  of  Israel,  but  especially  the 
whole  plateau  of  Zion,  is  holy  (xi.  9  ;  iv.  5).  The  code,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  framework,  of  Deuteronomy  never  mentions 
the  ark  ;  according  to  Jeremiah  the  ark  of  the  covenant  of 
Jehovah  is  a  thing  of  no  consequence.  In  the  days  of  Israel's 
repentance  it  shall  not  be  sought  for  or  repaired,  but  "  Jerusalem 
shall  be  called  Jehovah's  throne  "  (iii.  17).  Thus  it  is  still  as  the 
seat  of  Jehovah's  kingship  that  Jerusalem  has  central  religious 
importance  ;  the  political  not  the  priestly  ideal  is  that  which 
prevails  among  all  the  prophets  before  Ezekiel. 

Note  12,  p.  364. — Ashtoreth,  Moloch  or  Milcom,  and 
Chemosh,  in  whose  worship  similar  elements  prevailed  with 
those  of  Moloch  worship  (2  Kings  iii.  27),  and  who  was  also 
associated  with  Ashtoreth,  as  we  learn  from  the  compound 
Ashtar-Kemosh  of  the  stone  of  Mesha,  are  the  deities  mentioned 
in  connection  with  these  sanctuaries  in  1  Kings  xi.,  2  Kings 
xxiii.  13.  And  in  the  time  from  Manasseh  onwards,  Moloch- 
worship  and  worship  of  the  "  queen  of  heaven "  appear  as 
prominent  new  features  of  Judah's  idolatry.  It  is  also  prob- 
able that  the  local  high  places  took  on  their  restoration  a 
more  markedly  heathenish  character  than  before.  Isaiah  and 
Micah  do  not  speak  in  detail  of  Canaanite  abominations  in 
Judah,  such  as  are  mentioned  for  Ephraim  in  Amos  and  Hosea, 
while  the  book  of  Deuteronomy  regards  the  high  places  as  j^urely 
Canaanitish.  This  is  very  natural,  for  Sennacherib's  invasion 
must  have  led  captive  a  larger  proportion  of  the  higher  than  of 
the  lower  classes,  and  the  latter,  no  doubt,  were  more  mixed 
with  Canaanite  elements,  the  Israelites  having  long  been  a  sort  of 
aristocracy  in  the  land  {Hortm,  or  freemen).     Compare  Jer.  v.  4. 


LECT.  VIII.  OF  ZION.  439 

Note  13,  p.  365. — Ewald  is  doubtless  riglit  in  assigning 
these  chapters  to  the  reign  of  Manasseh.  The  times  are  worse 
than  those  of  Micah  i.-v.,  but  the  religion  of  Judah  has  lost  its 
old  naive,  joyful  character.  Without  any  true  sense  of  sin,  there 
is  a  strong  sense  of  Jehovah's  displeasure,  a  readiness  to  make 
any  sacrifice — even  that  of  the  firstborn  son — to  ajDpease  His 
wrath.  Then,  too,  the  statutes  of  the  house  of  Omri  are  kept 
(vi.  1 6).  These  are  precisely  the  notes  of  the  reign  of  Manasseh 
as  described  in  Kings.  One  correction,  however,  must  be  made 
on  Ewald's  view.  Wellhausen's  argument  that  the  prophecy 
breaks  off  abruptly  at  vii.  6,  and  that  the  following  verses  are 
written  from  the  standpoint  of  Babylonian  exile  (Bleek's  Einl.^ 
p.  425  seg.),  will,  I  think,  when  carefully  weighed,  be  found  to 
be  conclusive.  The  enemy  of  vii.  10  cannot  be  the  heathenish 
party  in  Judah  ;  the  restoration  looked  forward  to  is  not  a  turn 
of  affairs  in  a  still  existing  kingdom  of  Judah,  but  the  recall  of 
the  nation  from  banishment  in  Egypt  and  Assyria.  The  situa- 
tion is  no  longer,  as  in  the  previous  prophecy,  one  of  pre\'ailing 
national  sin,  the  judgment  on  which  cannot  long  be  delayed, 
but  a  situation  of  present  calamity  and  darkness,  the  punishment 
of  past  sins  which  are  acknowledged  by  a  penitent  nation. 


P.  153. — The  existence  of  a  vassal  kingdom  of  Samaria 
has  again  become  doubtful,  or  has  even  been  given  up  by  As- 
syriologists,  as  it  appears  that  the  name  read  Ushnurun  and 
identified  with  Samaria  ought  to  be  Samsimurun.  See  Schrader, 
Ahh.  Berl.  Al.,  1879;  Delitzsch,  Paradies,  p.  280;  Noldeke, 
Z.D.M.G.,  1882,  p.  178.  In  consequence  of  this  new  reading, 
the  word  Samaritans,  at  p.  322,  line  3,  should  also  be  omitted. 


INDEX. 


Adonis,  201  ;  gardens  of,  273. 

Ahab,  48,  76  seq. 

Ahaz,  200,  239 ;  alliance  with  Assyria, 

250  seq.;  liis  idolatrous  buildings, 

251  ;  refuses  to  hear  Isaiah,  266. 
Allegorical  interpretation  of  prophecy, 

339. 

Amaziah,  priest  of  Bethel,  101,  123 
seq.;  king  of  Judah,  194. 

Amorites,  26. 

Amos  of  Tekoah,  120  ;  at  Bethel,  122 
seq.;  his  style,  125  seq.;  his  range 
of  knoAvledge,  127  seq.;  prophecy 
of  Assyrian  conquest,  129  seq. ; 
his  doctrine  of  Jehovah,  132  seq.; 
prophecies  against  foreign  nations, 
134  ;  against  Israel,  135  seq. ;  duty 
of  Israel,  138  ;  sins  of  Israel,  139  ; 
eschatology,  142,  186;  contrasted 
with  Hosea,  160  seq.,  163,  187; 
influence  on  Isaiah,  209;  does  not 
condemn  the  calf-worship,  175  seq.; 
commentaries  on,  394 ;  supposed 
interpolations  in,  398  seq.;  Amos  v. 
26  discussed,  399  seq. 

Aramaeans,  23  seq. 

Ai-k  and  its  sanctuary,  36  seq.,  437. 

Ashdod,280;  Isaiah's  prophecy  against, 
281 

Ashera  (sacred  pole),  96,  292,  362. 

Ashtoreth,  26,  172. 

Assyria,  war  with  Damascus,  91  ;  in 
the  Ijook  of  Amos,  130  ;  relations 
to  Judah,  194  seq.,  250  seq.,  294 
seq.,  321  seq.,  366. 

Assyrian  inscrijitions,  19,  376  seq.; 
chronology,  150. 

Baal,  26,  38  ;  Tyrian  Baal  (Melkarth), 
48,  52   seq.,  76  ;    prophets  of,  57, 
20 


391  ;  Dionysiac  worship  of,  84, 
140;  Land  of,  172;  Baal  =  hus- 
band,  171. 

Bd I  and 'Athanj,  172,  409. 

Byblus  or  Gebal,  51. 

Calves,  golden,  symbols  of  Jehovah, 

175  seq. 
Canaanites,  24, 26  ;  relations  to  Israel, 

30  seq.;  in  Jerusalem  204. 
Carcheraish,  23,  377  seq. 
Cheyne,  Mr.,  on  the  prophecies  of  the 

reign  of  Sargon,  295  seq. 
Chronology  of  the  Hebrew  kingdoms, 

145  seq.,  402,  US  seq. 
Church,  birth  of  the  idea  of,  275. 

Damascus,  wars  with  Israel,  90  seq., 
131  ;  with  Assyria,  91,  130. 

Davidic  kingship,  45  seq. ;  in  the  pro- 
phecy of  Amos,  137,  186  ;  in  Hosea 
185  seq.;  in  Isaiah,  301,  309  seq., 
in  Micah,  291. 

Day  of  Jehovah,  131  seq.,  396. 

Deuteronomic  law  influenced  by  Micah, 
293  ;  relation  to  Hezekiah's  reform- 
ation, 363  seq. 

Development  of  revelation,  3  seq. 

"Dogs,"  391. 

Ecclesiastical  tradition,  5. 

Edom,  28  seq.,  135,  192,  203,  322. 

Egypt,  22  ;  united  to  the  throne  of 
Ethiopia,  279  ;  its  part  in  Hebrew 
politics,  280  seq.,  294  seq.,  319, 
321  seq.,  349. 

Ekron,  siege  of,  by  Sennacherib,  322. 

Elath,  203,  215,  238,  250. 

Elialdm,  307,  346  seq. 

Elijah,  76  seq. 


442 


INDEX, 


Elijah  and  Elisha,  history  of,  116. 
Elisha,  85,  87,  131,  208. 
Eltekeh  (Altaku),  battle  of,  322. 
Ephod  (plated  image),  98. 
Eponym  Canon,  150. 

Feasts,  religious,  38,  383  scq. 
Federal  theology,  375. 
Fir-trees,  411. 

Forty  as  round  number,  148,  403. 
Future  state,  doctrine  of,  63  seq. 

Geographical  knowledge  of  the  He- 
brews, 21  seci.;  of  Amos,  127  seg. 
Gomer  bath  Diblaim,  179  sec^, 

Hesed  (pietas)  explained,  160  seq.. 
406. 

Hezekiah,  his  early  years,  287  seq. , 
receives  ambassadors  of  Merodach 
Baladan,  318  ;  intrigues  with  Egypt, 
321 ;  attacked  by  Sennacherib,  345; 
surrenders,  347  ;  encouraged  to  re 
sist  by  Isaiah,  350 ;  his  weak  charac- 
ter, 347  ;  his  reformation,  359  seq. 

Hierodouloi,  228. 

High  places,  abolition  of,  362  seq. 

Historical  books  of  0.  T.,  109,  114 
seq. 

Hittites,  23,  377  seq. 

Holiness,  conception  of,  224,  422;  as 
developed  by  Isaiah,  225  seq.  ;  of 
the  land  of  Israel,  228  seq.;  sym- 
bolism of  fire  and  water,  232. 

Hosea,  date  of,  144,  155  ;  belonged 
to  Northern  Kingdom,  154;  attitude 
to  the  priests,  113,  156  ;  isolation 
of,  157  ;  his  prophecy  of  judgment, 
158;  his  doctrine  of  Jehovah's  love, 
159  seq.;  of  His  covenant,  161; 
Fatherhoood  of  Jehovah,  167  seq.; 
treats  Ephraim  as  a  moi-al  individual, 
165,  190 ;  his  references  to  past 
history,  165  ;  contrasted  with  Amos, 
160,  163,  186  ;  his  allegory  of  son- 
ship  and  marriage,  167  seq.;  his 
attitude  to  the  golden  calves,  175 
seq.;  his  personal  history,  179  seq.; 
his  condemnation  of  the  revolution 
of  Jehu,   183   seq.;    restoration  of 


Davidic  monarchy,  185  ;  his  escha- 

tology,  187  seq.;   title  of  his   pro- 

ihicy,  404. 
Hosea  iv.,   4  seq..,  405  ;  chap.  vii.   5, 

410  ;  chap,  xiv.  8,  411. 
Hoshea,  king  of  Samaria,  152,  279. 

Image-worship,  175  seq.  ;  240. 

Immanuel  (God  with  us),  270,  271 
seq. 

Inscriptions:  Moabite  (Mesha),  50, 382 ; 
Phoenician  (Gebal),  51,  (Sidon)  64, 
(Marseilles)  56  ;  of  Siloam,  236. 

Isaiah,  205  seq.;  his  iufluence,  206  seq., 
320,  350 ;  compared  with  Elisha, 
208  ;  with  Amos  and  Hosea,  209 
seq.,  229  seq..,  254  seq.;  with  Jere- 
miah, 259  seq.;  with  Micah,  289 
seq.;  order  of  his  book,  210  ;  critical 
questions,  213  seq.;  periods  of  his 
ministry,  214  ;  inaugural  vision, 
217  seq.;  doctrine  of  Jehovah's  holi- 
ness, 224  seq.;  his  lips  purged,  230 
seq.;  doctrine  of  the  remnant,  209, 
234,  258  ;  use  of  writing  as  a  vehicle 
of  teaching,  235  seq.;  his  first  pro- 
phetic book,  236  seq.;  condemnation 
of  the  unrighteous  nobles,  241,  283 
seq.,  346  ;  doctrine  of  Jehovah's 
kingly  righteousness,  226,  245  ; 
earliest  eschatological  ideal,  248  ; 
first  appearance  as  a  practical  poli- 
tician, 254  ;  doctrine  of  inviolalnlity 
of  Jerusalem,  258  seq.  ;  opposition 
to  Assyrian  alliance,  265  seq.;  his 
interpretation  of  the  Assyrian  ad- 
vance, 269  seq.;  **  God  with  us," 
270  seq.;  formation  of  a  prophetic 
party,  207  seq.,  274  ;  Messianic 
teaching,  276  seq.,  301  seq.;  prophecy 
against  Ashdod,  281  ;  prophecies 
on  the  eve  of  Samaria's  fall,  282 
seq.;  argument  from  husbandry, 
285  ;  picture  of  the  career  and  fall 
of  Assyria,  297  seq.;  his  definition 
of  miracle,  315  ;  prophecy  upon  the 
death  of  Sargon,  319  ;  prophecies 
under  Sennacherib,  322  seq.;  univer- 
salism,  331  seq. ;  conversion  of 
Ethiopia,   332;    of  Tyre,  334;   of 


INDEX. 


443 


Egypt  and  Assyria,  335  seq.;  pro- 
phecies during  the  invasion  of  Judali, 
345  seq.;  against  Shebna,  346  ;  en- 
courages Hezekiah,  350  seq.;  his 
great  victory,  352  seq.;  last  words 
of  Isaiali,  354  seq. 

Isaiah  i.,  215,  345  ;  ii.-v.,  215,  236 
seq.;  vi.,  217  seq.;  vii.  1-ix.  7,  258 
seq.;  ix.  8-x.  4,  215,  238  ;  x.  5-xi. 
16,  297  seq.;  xiv.  24-27,  300;  xiv. 
29  seq.,  319  ;  xv.  xvi.,  92  :  xvii,, 
273,  331;  xviii.,  331  seq.)  xix., 
333,  335  ;  xx.,  281  ;  xxi.  1-10,  420; 
xxi,  13  seq.,  333  ;  xxii.,  346  seq.; 
xxiii.,  333  seq.;  xxviii.,  282  seq.; 
xxix,  -  xxxii.,  307,  314,  322  seq.; 
xxxiii.,  354  seq.  ;  xxxvii,,  351  seq. 

Israel  in  Egypt,  29  ;  in  Canaan,  30 
seq. ;  early  religion,  32  seq. ;  con- 
solidated into  a  kingdom,  45,  47  ; 
division  of  the  kingdom,  48  ;  tribal 
organisation,  93  ;  ancient  life,  94  ; 
social  decay,  88,  95  seq.;  early  ideal 
of,  as  a  warlike  kingdom  victorious 
in  Jehovah,  119;  Israel  Jehovah's 
spouse,  170  seq.;  unfaithfulness  of, 
176  seq. 

Jehovah  (lahwe)  God  of  Israel,  20, 
32  seq.;  Syncretism  with  Baal,  38, 
173  ;  God  of  the  armies  of  Israel 
(lahwe  gebaoth),  39,  42,  62,  76, 
131  ;  His  attributes,  62  ;  God  of 
righteousness,  71  seq.,  245  seq. ;  a 
jealous  God,  79,  119  ;  His  love  to 
Israel,  159  seq.;  His  covenant,  161  ; 
holiness  of,  224  seq.;  the  Holy  One 
of  Israel,  227  ;  Jehovah  and  the 
idols,  240 ;  His  spirit,  304  ;  mean- 
ing of  the  name,  385  seq. 

Jehoshaphat,  112. 

Jehu,  house  of,  88,  95,  183  seq. 

Jeroboam  II.,  89,  92  seq. 

Jirbas,  377. 

Jonadab  the  Rechabite,  84. 

Judah,  foreign  elements  in,  28,  201  ; 
history  of,  after  the  schism,  191 
seq.;  inferiority  to  Ephraim,  192 
seq.;  in  Blessing  of  Moses,  118; 
suffers  from  Hazael,  193  ;  relations  i 


to  Assyria,  194  seq.;  character  of 
the  Judcean  monarchy,  196  seq.;  re- 
ligious condition,  199  seq.;  prosper- 
ity under  Uzziah,  203  seq.;  social 
disintegration,  204  seq.;  sins  of  the 
nobles,  241,  287  seq.;  under  Heze- 
kiah, 294  seq.,  318  seq. 

Kenites,  29. 

Manasseh,  reaction  under,  206,  365. 

Marriage,  religious  symbolism  of,  171 
seq. 

Menahem,  151  seq. 

Merodach  Baladan,  281,  317  seq. 

Messiah,  302  seq. 

Micah,  287  seq.;  prophecy  against 
Samaria,  288 ;  description  of  the 
sins  of  Judah,  288  seq.;  the  wrongs 
of  the  peasantry,  289  ;  democratic 
character  of  his  prophecy,  290 ;  fall 
of  Jerusalem,  291  ;  the  new  David, 
291  ;  great  influence  of  Micah,  292 
seq.,  363  ;  interpolations  in  Micah, 
427  seq. 

Micah  ii.  8  emended,  427;  Micah  vL 
vii.,  365,  372,  439. 

Miracle,  315. 

Moab,  24,  28  ;  religion  of,  50  ;  wars 
with  Northern  Israel,  75  ;  subdued 
by  Jeroboam  II.,  91  ;  ancient  pro- 
phecy against  (Isa.  xv.  xvi),  92  seq.; 
in  the  prophecy  of  Amos,  135  ;  in 
Assyrian  period,  294,  322. 

Monotheism,  54,  59  seq.,  225  seq. 

Moresheth  Gath,  287. 

Moses,  32  seq.;  his  work,  35  seq.;  as 
judge  or  lawgiver,  110  seq.;  Blessing 
of  (Deut.  xxxiii.),  49,  117  seq. 

Naboth,  murder  of,  77,  87. 
Nazarites,  84,  137  seq.,  437. 

Omei,  house  of,  75  seq.,  95. 

Palestine,  physical  features  of,  24 
seq.;  inhabitants,  26,  28  ;  conquest 
by  Hebrews,  29  seq. 

Patriarchs,  history  of,  116,  166. 

Pekah,  152,  194,  250. 

Pentateuch   contains    strata    of  very 


444 


INDEX. 


different  dates,  108  seq. ;  oldest  laws, 
113  st(i. 

Philistines,  45,  134,  137  ;  wars  with 
Judah,  192,  239 ;  with  Assyria, 
279  seq.,  294,  318,  322. 

Phceniciaus,  22,  25  scg.;  their  religion, 
26  seq.;  inliuence  of  their  art  in  the 
Temple,  56,  385. 

Priests  of  the  northern  sanctuaries, 
98,  100 ;  corruption  of  in  eighth 
century,  101. 

Proi)hetic  party  of  Isaiah,  207  seq., 
274,  320  ;  its  victory,  348  seq. ;  its 
decadence,  370  ;  prophetic  predic- 
tion, interj)retation  of,  268,  336  seq. 

Prophets,  their  work,  69  seq.  ;  Ptab- 
binical  conception  of,  82  ;  sons  of 
(prophetic  guilds),  85  seq.;  con- 
trasted with  diviners,  219  scq.;  the 
name  nahX,  389  seq. 

Psalm  xlvi.,  352. 

Raphia,  280,  426. 

Religion,  the  subject  of,  in  0.  T.,  is 
the  nation  of  Israel,  20  ;  religion 
and  morality,  72  seq.;  chief  merit  of 
the  popular  Hebrew  religion,  312  ; 
true  and  false  religion,  273. 

Remnant,  prophetic  doctrine  of,  106 
seq.,  209,  234,  258. 

Rephaim  (shades),  64. 

Revelation,  development  of,  3  scq.; 
objections  to  doctrine  of  sj^ecial 
revelation  in  Israel,  9  seq.;  answer 
to  these  objections,  11  seq.;  evidence 
of  the  truth  of  the  Bible  revelation, 
16. 

Righteousness,  71  scg.,  245,  388. 

Sabbath,  384. 

Samaria,  Ashera  in,  140  ;  siege  of,  151, 

403  ;  vassal  kingdom  in,  153. 
Samaritans,  153. 
Sanctuaries,  local,  37,  43  ;  their  ritual 

and  priesthood,   97  seq.  ;  places  of 

judgment,  100  seq.;  in  Judah,  199 

seq.;  abolished,  362, 


Sargon,  king  of  Assyria,  279  seq.,  294 
seq.;  his  death  317. 

Saul,  45,  381,  391,  393. 

Sebech  or  So,  279  seq. 

Semitic  races,  22  ;  their  religion,  50 
seq.  ;  characteristics  of  their  litera- 
ture, 126. 

Sennacherib,  297,  317  seq.,  345  seq. 

Seraphim,  218. 

Shechem,  31,  99,  118. 

Sin,  early  Hebrew  conception  of,  102 
seq.;  in  Isaiah,  246  seq. 

Sinai,  seat  of  Jehovah,  34,  39  ;  legisla- 
tion at,  111. 

So,  king  of  Egypt,  279. 

Solomon,  heathen  shrines  of,  76,  111, 
202,  364  ;  despotism  of,  95,  198. 

Sonship,  doctrine  of,  in  Old  Testa- 
ment, 20,  167  seq. 

Spirit,  60  seq.;  of  Jehovah,  304  seq. 

Supernatural,  prophetic  view  of  the, 
310  seq. 

Sycamore,  395. 

Syria  or  Aram,  22  seq.  ;  wars  with 
Israel,  88,  90  seq.     See  Damascus. 

Tekoa,  120,  394. 
Teraphim,  33,  98. 
Theocracy,    51    seq.  ;    origin   of  the 

name,  52  ;  among  heathen  Semites, 

52  seq. 
Tirhakah,  322,  349. 
Tithes,  53,  382  seq. 
Tyre,    Isaiah's    prophecy   concerning, 

333,  334. 

Uriah,  the  friend  of  Isaiah,  207. 
Urim  and  Thummim,  100. 
Uzziah,  194,  203  seq. 

Vision,  prophetic,  219  seq. 

Wine,  388. 

Zechariah  ix.-xiv.j  412. 


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